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Overview. From the euphoric first to the solemn sixth, the Brandenburg Concertos features some of Bach's finest and most popular orchestral music.
- They redefined the concerto and took it to new heights. These concertos are in concerto grosso, literally ‘big concerto’, form, which is when a large number of instruments takes on solo roles.
- They were subversive and spoke truth to power. Johann Sebastian Bach composed these pieces during his years spent as a court composer to the music-loving aristocrat, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen.
- They have a deeply beautiful two-chord movement. These concertos, with inventive harmony, complex counterpoint, multi-layered fugues and interweaving textures, showcase Baroque music at its most intricate, detailed and mind-bogglingly intellectual, extreme.
- They fought fascism. Adolf Busch was a very famous violinist in 1920s Germany, In 1927, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Busch denounced Nazism and emigrated to Switzerland and then to America.
- The Concertos as Job Application
- The Concertos Lost and Found
- The Performances
One of the explanations that the concertos provide such breadth and depth of musical variety is because Bach compiled them as a job application to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, younger brother of the King. As such, it’s one of the few manuscripts that Bach wrote out himself, rather than give to a copyist. He also included an in...
The Margrave’s apparent disinterest in the concertos risked having them lost entirely, but kept them sufficiently preserved so that when they were eventually rediscovered – the manuscript was in great shape. The Margrave died in 1734, at which time the manuscript was sold for roughly the equivalent of $24. Eventually, it ended up being found by the...
Due to the concertos inauspicious beginnings, it’s unclear exactly when they were first performed. While it’s widely believed the Margrave’s court orchestra never performed them, it’s also widely believed that Bach’s provincial orchestral did. The King of Prussia at the time wasn’t a great fan of the arts. When he ascended the throne shortly before...
The six Brandenburg Concertos belongs to these masterpieces for a small ensemble. This joyously infectious performance of these famous landmarks in the history of music by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra demonstrates both the musical satisfaction and the high professional standard that can be reached with period instruments.
Dec 22, 2021 · Renditions of the concertos come clothed in recordings called “Bach Unbuttoned” (a lively flute-centric account of the six concertos featuring Ana de la Vega), “The Hidden Reunion” (the sixth...
- Mark Swed
- Classical Music Critic
- mark.swed@latimes.com
May 10, 2022 · Like many of his other works, J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos have spawned a myriad of arguments as to their backgrounds, intentions, and meanings. The many articles, books, and theses written on these Concertos range from analysis of the music’s formal symmetry to hypotheses about how Bach’s life at the time may have influenced their ...
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Hear Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Played on Original Baroque Instruments. in History, Music | July 7th, 2021 Leave a Comment. “Subtle and brilliant at the same time, they are a microcosm of Baroque music, with an astonishingly vast sample of that era’s emotional universe.”. — Ted Libbey.
