Brandenburg concerts
The Brandenburg Concerts are a group of six instrumental concerts by Johann Sebastian Bach ( BWV 1046–1051). The surviving score from 1721 is dedicated to the Margrave Christian Ludwig von Brandenburg-Schwedt (1677–1734), whom Bach met in Berlin in the winter of 1718/1719.
title
The title Brandenburg Concerts was coined by Philipp Spitta in his Bach biography, written in 1873–1879, and has become widely accepted today. Bach's original title is "Six Concerts with Several Instruments", in French:
Six Concerts Avec plusieurs Instruments.
Dediées A Son Altesse Royalle Monsigneur
CRETIEN LOUIS. Marggraf de Brandenbourg & c: & c: & c:
par Son tres-humble & tres obeissant Serviteur
Jean Sebastien Bach, Maitre de Chapelle de SAS
Prince regnant d ' Anhalt-Coethen .
On the back of the title page there is a dedication to the margrave, also in French.
The six concerts show a high level of stylistic and structural diversity. In their mixture of the various historical and future-oriented elements, they form a personal and yet universally valid form of expression.
Emergence
When Bach sent the score of the six concerts to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721, he had not composed the works specifically for the occasion. Rather, Bach had put together the collection from compositions that were not all created in Koethen, but some of which were probably created during his Weimar tenure (1708–1717).
It can be assumed that Bach was only allowed to dedicate the works created at the Koethen court to another prince with the permission of his employer, Prince Leopold . But there is no reason to doubt his consent - he may even have taken the initiative, since only six months earlier he had given the prince a crystal chandelier.
In Köthen, Bach began to put his compositions together in extensive cycles that followed principles of order, such as planned sequences of keys or individual movements - examples are the Well-Tempered Clavier or the English and French Suites . In the Brandenburg Concerts, however, there is still nothing to be seen of such a continuous design of a cycle - except in the attempt to provide every instrument common at the time with a part - in many cases also a solo part.
Copies of five of the concertos have been preserved regardless of the dedication score; none of them contain several works. It can be assumed that Bach only compiled the collection for the dedication score and did not regard the individual concerts as belonging together either before or after. The concerts therefore only form a loose collection without any attempt at further design as a whole - it would probably not have occurred to Bach to perform the concerts together. There is a counter thesis in the current production in Graz. The fact that Bach could have glorified the virtues of baroque princes in the guise of mythology in this cycle is not a new, but extremely charming idea: the prince as a hunter (1), warrior (2), muse prince (3), the prince as his shepherd People (4), lover (5) and scholar (6). The hunting horns of Diana, the flutes of Pan, the violin of Apollo and the nine muses with their stringed instruments are obvious allusions. Stefan Gottfried draws from this treasure trove of ancient symbolism when he reinterprets the “Brandenburgische” at Styriarte.
Conversely, Bach's meticulous work and thus the appreciation he showed for the concerts is evident in the revision of many details of the underlying scores - such as the fine differentiation of the parts of cello , violone and continuo , which he often considers with separate parts. The thorough spelling of the score also clearly shows his commitment to the work: the bar lines are almost without exception drawn with a ruler. Bach may have promised himself the title of court conductor and the associated lucrative composition commissions from the dedication .
Another story
In addition to the dedication copy, Bach also owned composition scores for the individual concerts, which he used in some cases for later versions, for example as introductory symphonies in cantatas. None of these composition scores have survived. There are indications that his son Carl Philipp Emanuel had copies of some concerts and made this music known in Berlin. The dedication score lay undiscovered in the library of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt until 1850 and then in the Royal Library in Berlin (now the Berlin State Library ). It only became generally known when the Bach Complete Edition was published.
Overview
| concert | key | BWV | occupation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st concert | F major | BWV 1046 | 2 horns , 3 oboes , bassoon , violino piccolo , strings, continuo |
| 2nd concert | F major | BWV 1047 | Trumpet , violin , recorder , oboe , strings, continuo |
| 3rd concert | G major | BWV 1048 | 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, continuo |
| 4th concert | G major | BWV 1049 | Violin, 2 recorders , strings, continuo |
| 5th concert | D major | BWV 1050 | Harpsichord , violin, transverse flute , strings, continuo |
| 6th concert | B flat major | BWV 1051 | 2 violas , cello , two violas da gamba , violone , Continuo |
The concerts are highly individual in terms of instrumentation and all compositional details. Nevertheless, individual groups can be distinguished stylistically:
- The first and third concertos follow the form of an Italian overture consisting of a concert movement, slow middle movement and dance - the first concert in its original form BWV 1071 was probably also used as such an overture. The slow movements each end here with a Phrygian half-close . Both concerts clearly represent the older form of a group concert , in which not solo instruments in an orchestra, but orchestral groups are juxtaposed. Here, too, the section leaders of the individual instrumental groups have the opportunity to perform as a soloist. According to the current state of research, the two works were certainly written before 1715, i.e. still in Weimar.
- The fifth and sixth concerts are the stylistic extremes of the collection; From today's point of view, however, they could well have been created in close proximity, probably in 1718/1719. Bach succeeds here in clearly alluding to a certain national style within the three-movement Italian concert form and with its means: in the fifth concert it is contemporary court French music, in the sixth concert the music of the generation of Bach's German predecessors, so that the sixth concert is long could be regarded as the oldest of the cycle. Both concerts use three solo instruments, but only contrast them with a very small, three-part tutti : In the fifth in the original version only violin, viola and violone (which Bach later added with a cello, but not a second violin); in the sixth the accompaniment does not even consist of instruments from the violin family, but of two viols and a violone . In both works, the middle movement is played by the solo instruments alone or with continuo.
- The second and fourth concert juxtapose a small group of solo instruments with a string orchestra and thus represent the modern form of a concert for several solo instruments; here the final sentences are always more or less fully developed fugues . It is noticeable that the instrument that dominates the corner movements (trumpet in the second, violin in the fourth concert) is either silent in the middle movement or is reduced to a purely accompanying function; Bach evidently applied other standards than a clean separation of instrumental functions from today's perspective. From today's perspective, the second and fourth concertos are likely to be the youngest in the collection, as the small number of corrections in the dedication score suggests.
Edits
Little is known about Max Reger's arrangements of the Brandenburg Concerts for piano four hands (1905).
literature
- Peter Schleuning: Johann Sebastian Bach. The Brandenburg Concerts . 1st edition, Bärenreiter, March 2003, ISBN 978-3-7618-1491-8 .
Web links
- Brandenburg Concerts : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
Notes and recordings
- Original score (Berlin State Library)
- Source description of the original score , source database RISM
Individual evidence
- ^ Christoph Wolff : Johann Sebastian Bach , 2nd edition 2007. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 978-3-596-16739-5
- ^ Siegbert Rampe, Dominik Sackmann: Bach's Orchestermusik , Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1345-7 , p. 90
- ^ A b Siegbert Rampe, Dominik Sackmann: Bach's Orchestermusik , Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1345-7 , p. 242
- ^ Siegbert Rampe, Dominik Sackmann: Bach's Orchestermusik , Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1345-7 , p. 241
- ^ Brandenburg Concerts for Pianoforte for Four Hands (Bach, Johann Sebastian) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project