5th Brandenburg Concert

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Johann Sebastian Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto , BWV 1050, is a concerto for solo harpsichord, flute, violin and string orchestra and is one of the earliest examples of a solo keyboard instrument with orchestra. It is part of a collection of six concerts , the score of which Bach sent to Margrave Christian Ludwig von Brandenburg-Schwedt in March 1721 under the title Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments . The individual works in this collection show great differences in cast and character.

occupation

The composition contrasts three solo instruments with a string orchestra. This orchestra, however, unusually dispenses with the second violin, which is generally explained in literature by the lack of a corresponding player, i.e. it suggests that it was made for a solo ensemble:

Emergence

An early version (BWV 1050a) of the concert has been preserved; in it the written out, unaccompanied harpsichord solo ( Solo senza stromenti ) is only eighteen bars long. This part was certainly written for a one-manual instrument with a smaller range, i.e. it was written before the winter of 1718/1719, when Bach picked up a new, larger harpsichord in Berlin - the well-known extensive cadenza may have been created for this large harpsichord later. The cello part was also missing in the early version, so that apparently only six musicians were needed here.

It was therefore assumed that this concerto was written for the planned meeting between Bach and Louis Marchand in September 1717. This event took place in Dresden in the apartment of the violinist Jean-Baptiste Volumier , who was a friend of Bach . Of course, many musicians were present, so it is quite conceivable that Bach had also planned a concert ensemble piece here; Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin would then have played the solo flute and the host would have played the solo violin.

It was countered that the solo parts are much too easy for these virtuosos and that harpsichords with a larger keyboard range were definitely available in Dresden. So today the concert is brought more in connection with Prince Leopold's first stay in Karlsbad (May / July 1718), to which he had taken six musicians with him. This would explain the lack of a second tutti violin as well as the less demanding flute part, which could also be mastered by a player with another main instrument.

music

The sentences are overwritten:

  • Allegro ¢ D major
  • Affettuoso in B minor
  • Allegro 2/4 in D major

Within the concert form, which originated in Italy, the very modern-looking movement, which emphasizes the outer voices with its constant triplets, clearly alludes to the French taste. The use of the emerging transverse flute also points in this direction. After a while, all three movements introduce a melody characterized by motifs of sighs , which also refers to models by French composers. This concert can be seen as an example of the efforts of German composers of the high baroque to combine the national styles of Italy and France.

The instruments are used quite equally over long distances; In the second half of the first and third movements, however, there are increasingly virtuoso parts for the harpsichord, which in places push the other instruments a little into the background and lead to an extensive solo in the first movement. Because of the dominant role of the harpsichord, the concert is sometimes seen as the first harpsichord concert in music history. The idea of ​​a further instrumental group (here solo flute and violin) as a kind of intermediary element between the actual solo instrument and the orchestra was also recorded by Bach in the fourth Brandenburg Concerto and in the Triple Concerto in A minor .

First sentence

After the tutti ritornello, the soloists introduce themselves with their own theme and quickly develop from this contrasting theme a melody characterized by motifs of sighs. Extensive solo passages are structured by frequent orchestral appearances starting with the ritornello.

About halfway to the harpsichord cadenza, the flute and violin unexpectedly introduce a new vocal motif pianissimo without further preparation or dramatization , which they perform alternately in bars, and finally reduce it to a rather inconspicuous eighth note motif. The harpsichord drives here in the background through eighths of the left hand and uninterrupted chord breaks in the right; This whole passage is a large-scale, often dissonant study of harmony, which ends with an organ point and long trills of flute and violin and finally leads to the ritornello on the dominant. There now follows a recapitulation of the initial solo material, before the harpsichord begins to draw attention to itself with its frenzied thirty-two positions; the other instruments are now withdrawing more and more. This masterfully composed decrescendo clearly shows the sonic flair of Bach and the inappropriateness of the catchphrase "Baroque terrace dynamics ".

The extensive unaccompanied solo of the harpsichord is based on the solo theme and continues it, interrupting again and again with virtuoso, primarily harmoniously conceived sections. Even a noticeable, long organ point on the dominant does not yet lead to the final tutti; the solution is delayed a few bars by fallacy.

Second sentence

As in many concerts in the collection, the slow movement ( affettuoso ) is performed by the solo instruments alone: ​​an initially unthemical bass of the left hand accompanies the right hand of the harpsichord as well as the flute and violin. Its theme is mainly characterized by a soft dotted rhythm. In its second half, however, the theme contains contrasting legato chains, from which Bach quickly develops a contrasting motif. He contrasts this with the opening theme, which now looks more like a ritornello and is used clearly to structure the movement in the further course.

Between five tutti passages (recognizable by the performance designation forte in flute and violin as well as the fact that the harpsichord plays the continuo) lie the solo passages, in which the instruments tend to be used alternately and which all end with the harpsichord alone.

Third sentence

The final movement begins like a fugue - first in the solo instruments, then also in the orchestra - but the thematic work is quickly abandoned. This movement is clearly in three parts, with identical outer parts and a contrasting middle part of double length in the parallel minor key. This middle section of the movement also introduces a completely new theme right at the beginning, which, due to its wide arc and vocal character, forms a clear contrast to the previous one and which Bach expressly called cantabile . After each solo instrument has played it once, it is also taken over by the upper voices of the orchestra; the boundaries between solo instrument and orchestral instrument blur here in places in a dense network. From about the middle of the movement onwards, the harpsichord is again clearly emphasized as a soloist, with the flute and violin on the one hand and orchestral treble voices on the other as closed groups. The section ends in B minor, then the movement starts all over again without transition, i.e. with the literal repetition of the first section.

reception

The film Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1967) by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet begins with the first movement of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto from the solo cadenza; Gustav Leonhardt plays here as Johann Sebastian Bach.

The dominant motif of the third movement is used by the RBB broadcasting station Kulturradio as a signature melody.

Web links

grades

Recordings

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pieter Dierksen: The background to Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto . In: The Harpsichord and its Repertoire, Proceedings of the International Harpsichord Symposium Utrecht 1990 . Utrecht 1992, p. 157 f.
  2. ^ Pieter Dierksen: The background to Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto . In: The Harpsichord and its Repertoire, Proceedings of the International Harpsichord Symposium Utrecht 1990 . Utrecht 1992, p. 157.
  3. ^ Hans Joachim Schulze: Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerts . In: Bach Studies 6 , Leipzig 1981, p. 16
  4. ^ Siegbert Rampe, Dominik Sackmann: Bach's orchestral music . Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1345-7 , p. 99