Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

To His Royal Highness Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, etc., etc., etc.  Sire:  Since I had the happiness of playing at the command of Your Royal Highness a few years ago, and I saw that you took some pleasure in the small talents for music that Heaven has given me, and that, in taking leave of Your Royal Highness, you did me the honor of asking that I send you several of my compositions: therefore, following your gracious command, I take the liberty of offering my most humble respects to Your Royal Highness with the present concertos, which I have arranged for several instruments. . .

With these words, Bach offered to the Margrave of Brandenburg, the youngest son of the Prince-Elector, some of the most sublime music ever written.  The date of the dedication was March 24, 1721, and the volume, neatly copied out in Bach's own hand, was entitled "Six concertos with several instruments. . ."  (The popular title "Brandenburg Concertos" was bestowed more than a century and a half later by Bach's biographer, Philipp Spitta.) 

As he says, Bach had met the Margrave and played for him only a few years earlier in Berlin, while on a visit to find a new harpsichord, and the Margrave had asked Bach to send some of his compositions.  But what the Margrave thought of these concertos or whether he actually had any of them performed is unclear.  There is no record that Christian Ludwig ever thanked Bach for sending his music, and the original score looks like it was never used, although, of course, copies could have been made.  In fact, most of these concertos did not fit the make-up of the Margrave's personal band, whereas the ensemble that Bach was then directing at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen would have been well suited for these concertos.  Clearly, Bach did not compose the music specially for the Margrave, but gathered together in one volume six of the concertos that he had composed for his own use over a period of years.    

The Brandenburgs grow out of Bach's long fascination with the latest concertos of Vivaldi and other Italian composers, and they are often cited as the culmination of that genre, but they are more than a summation.  They go well beyond their models in their structure and instrumentation.  Each of the six Brandenburg Concertos is scored for a different combination of instruments, and each combination is unique in the repertoire. 

Of these six concerti, the second, fourth and fifth work well with either a small band of one player to a part, such as Bach seems to have had at Cöthen, or a larger ensemble with multiple strings, as would have been employed at some of the more wealthy establishments of the time.The first concerto, the early version of which precedes Bach's employment at Cöthen, has a richer orchestral texture and is better balanced with multiple strings.The third concerto, on the other hand, is likely meant for solo players on each part, for reasons discussed below.The sixth concerto too essentially a chamber piece with one player to a part, with the unusual tutti ensemble, which includes the transparent sounds of gambas, being almost the same size as the solo group.

Concerto No. 1

The first of the Brandenburg Concertos has the fullest, most complex orchestral sound of any of the six.  Here, Bach calls for an orchestra divided into three choirs of instruments--strings, woodwinds and brass--and appoints solo instruments within each group.  The string section of the orchestra includes a solo violino piccolo tuned a minor third higher than the normal violin.  Among the woodwind group --three oboes and a bassoon -- the first oboe is often a soloist.  The third group comprises two horns, which together act much like a third soloist, along with the violino piccolo and oboe. 

For the first three movements, Bach creates a music of multiple layers, as the instrumental choirs imitate and answer each other with their characteristic sonorities.  In the first movement, he does this for the most part without soloists.  The Adagio features the solo violin and oboe, answered by the bass instruments, and, in the third movement, a solo horn joins the violin and oboe.  However, in the fourth and final movement, the menuet with its trios, the choirs of instruments are treated differently.  For the four repetitions of the menuet itself, all the instruments are combined into a single orchestral sonority.  Each of the three middle sections, however, features a different instrumental group, the first has the woodwinds alone, the polonaise the strings alone, and the last the horns (an extraordinary accompaniment of unison oboes).  The polonaise (written poloinesse in Bach's manuscript and altered to the Italian polacca in some later sources) is named for the moderately paced Polish dance.

Bach's use of horns in this concerto is remarkable.  As hunting instruments, they had been employed on special occasions to depict hunting scenes, but this concerto is one of the earliest works to use horns as regular members of the orchestra.  (The first version of this piece is thought to predate Handel's Water Music, another early work with orchestral horns.)  Despite their newcomer status, Bach calls for a full range of virtuoso technique from the horns.  Nonetheless, he reminds us of their origins at certain moments, such as at the very beginning of this concerto, where the horns play hunting calls.  As if to emphasize their presence, Bach superimposes the opening horn calls onto the more traditional concerto music played by the rest of the orchestra, using a cross rhythm (triplets against the sixteenths of the orchestra); and he uses the traditional horn calls unaltered, even though some notes conflict with the harmonies of the orchestra.  Bach's instruments were the natural (valveless) horns that developed directly from the hunting instrument. 

There is, as mentioned, an earlier version of this first concerto, which may date from around 1713, the year of the "Hunt" Cantata (BWV 208), another work in which Bach uses horns.  In 1726, five years after sending his concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg, Bach recycled music from this concerto for use in two cantatas at Leipzig.  The entire first movement forms the opening sinfonia of his cantata, BWV 52.  Then, only a few weeks later, he made a more fanciful adaptation of the third movement for a celebratory secular cantata (BWV 207), using three trumpets and timpani, instead of horns, and adding a four-voice chorus.

Concerto No. 2

The unique quartet of soloists in this concerto consists of a violin, a recorder, an oboe, and a trumpet.  All four are high instruments, and, together with the relatively transparent orchestral sound in much of the work, they give this concerto an unusually light texture. 

The extraordinarily difficult, high trumpet part in the first and third movements is written for a rare instrument, a natural (valveless) trumpet in F.  (Most Baroque trumpet music is in D or C.)  The concerto is, of course, often played to excellent -- although quite different -- effect on the modern valved trumpet.  While that instrument can give the part great soloistic brilliance, the lighter natural trumpet of Bach's day becomes more of an integral part of the solo quartet.  (In 1950, at a time when this high trumpet part was still considered nearly unplayable, Pablo Casals made an inspired recording of it by substituting a soprano saxophone for the trumpet.)

The middle movement of this concerto is a chamber work, for only the violin, oboe and recorder with continuo.  The trumpet and the orchestra are tacet.  While the three soloists play thematic material, the constant eighth notes in the continuo bass gently propel the piece forward.

The third movement then offers a minimal role for the orchestra.  Here, the four soloists play alone with continuo for the first third of the movement, and they continue to dominate to the end without interruption from the orchestra.  The orchestra enters to accompany four passages, but only the bass instruments of the orchestra are given any thematic material.  The basses in this way counter-balance the high solo quartet.

Concerto No. 3

There is a good deal of theater in a live performance of these concertos.  In this third concerto, the most striking theatrical effect grows out of its scoring.  It is a concerto for strings, with an ensemble that contrasts three trios -- three violins, three violas and three cellos -- the high, middle and low registers of the violin family.  These are supported by a continuo accompaniment of violone and harpsichord.

As musical motives pass from one trio to another, or, within the trios, from one soloist to another, we hear (and see, in a live performance) a physical movement of the musical line.  If the violins, violas and cellos are arranged in a large semi-circle, the motives move around the semi-circle, as they go from high to low instruments and back again.  The effect is best realized when there is only one player to a part.

The Adagio separating the two fast movements of this concerto consists only of two chords.  Given the finished quality of the manuscript that Bach presented to the Margrave of Brandenburg, there is no reason to suppose that anything else is meant to be supplied here, other than perhaps a connecting flourish between the two chords. 

As with the first Brandenburg, Bach later borrowed part of this work for use in one of his cantatas.  In 1729, he used the first movement as the opening sinfonia of his cantata, BWV 174, adding yet another trio of three oboes, as well as two horns to the orchestra.

Concerto No. 4

This concerto, probably one of the last of the six to be composed, is closest to the style of the Italian solo violin concertos, which so fascinated Bach in this period of his life.  The work is in fact a combination of a solo concerto and a group concerto (concerto grosso).  While there are three solo instruments--two recorders and a violin--pitted against the larger ensemble, it is the violin with its difficult passage work which dominates in the fast movements.  The original score refers to the two wind instruments cryptically as "fiauti d'Echo," or "echo flutes,"  but the music itself leaves little doubt that recorders are intended.  It has been suggested that Bach's peculiar designation may refer to the way the solo instruments echo the orchestra in the second movement, even though the violin also joins in the echos. 

A decade later, in the 1730s, when Bach was transcribing a number of his earlier concertos for harpsichord, he reworked this piece, substituting a solo harpsichord for the violin and transposing the piece down a whole step to F major.  Interestingly the tempo of the last movement, marked presto in the original Brandenburg Concerto, was slowed down a bit in the harpsichord version to allegro assai. 

Concerto No. 5

For a modern audience, used to a long tradition of harpsichord and piano concertos, it may be difficult to recapture the sense of surprise and innovation that listeners must have experienced when this concerto was first performed.  The three soloists in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto are flute, violin and harpsichord.  While the flute and violin had been frequently heard in concertos, this is believed to be the very first harpsichord concerto, an idea which may have been inspired by Bach's recent purchase of a new harpsichord in Berlin.  Previously keyboard instruments had only been accompanists in the orchestra, whereas here, not only is the harpsichord elevated to soloist, but it gradually becomes the dominant soloist in the first movement. 

Near the end of the first movement, the harpsichord figuration accelerates to 32nd notes, as the orchestra gradually slows down.  Eventually the orchestra stops, and the harpsichord begins its famous solo cadenza, an extraordinary and unusually long one (sixty-five measures), expanded from an earlier and much simpler nineteen-measure cadenza.  The longer and more famous version has far more than the free ornamental display of a normal cadenza.  It continues the forward movement of the concerto in a long, tightly constructed arc and creates a sense of climax that is unusual for this kind of concerto.  After building on material heard earlier in the movement, the left hand settles onto a dominant "A" in the bass, which is repeated through all the fast figuration that follows.  As the cadenza builds toward the climactic entrance of the orchestra and we wait for the "A" in the bass to resolve, Bach increases the tension by slowing down the fast figuration, from 32nd notes to 16th-note triplets to 16th notes.  Finally the string players, who have waited silently (a bit of stage drama not felt on an audio recording!), pick up their instruments and reenters with a repeat of the opening tutti to end the movement.

The second movement is for the three soloists alone, but it imitates in miniature the orchestral tuttis and solo passages of a normal concerto movement.  At the beginning, at the end and at three key points in the middle, we hear the "orchestral" passages; these are marked forte and feature the violin and flute, while the harpsichord accompanies with continuo chords.  For the rest, the harpsichord is once again the main solo instrument, while the violin and flute murmur occasional brief comments. 

As the third movement begins, the soloists continue to play alone.  The orchestra enters only after twenty-nine measures and then not en masse, but in individual contrapuntal entrances (another place where the visual drama on stage reinforces the musical drama).  Such a transparent beginning establishes a character that is quite different from that of the first movement.  Here the rhythms dance like a gigue, and the orchestral writing is lighter and more contrapuntal.  The form is a simple A-B-A: following a middle section in the relative minor, the entire opening section is repeated. 

Bach's scoring for the ensemble is unusual in that he completely omits the normal second violin part.  In all probability, the reason for this was a practical one.  Bach normally liked to play viola in the ensemble, but since he undoubtedly wrote the elaborate solo harpsichord part for himself to play, his small court band would have had no violist.  Rather than leave the middle range of the viola part empty, the second violinist could easily have switched to viola, leaving only one orchestral violin. 

Concerto No. 6

The Sixth Brandenburg Concerto has the darkest sound of any of the six concertos, for here Bach completely omits the violins and leaves the highest sounds to the middle-range violas.  As we would expect from a concerto, Bach does contrast solo and tutti groups of instruments, but he must do so with minimal resources, since this work is really for a chamber ensemble.  The solo trio of two violas and cello is contrasted with only four other instruments: harpsichord and violone playing the continuo bass and two violas da gamba filling in the middle voices.  The viola da gamba, already something of an early instrument by Bach's time, lends a transparent sound that is exotic in a concerto ensemble.  Indeed, the striking orchestration of this work suggests that it may have been written earlier than the other Brandenburgs, since in Weimar, Bach had written other music with similar low orchestrations.  On the other hand, it may date from early in Bach's time at Cöthen (1717); Prince Leopold, his new employer, was an amateur gambist, and the relatively limited gamba parts in this concerto could perhaps have been meant to give Leopold a chance to play with the ensemble. 

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