THERE WAS A CUSTOM that may still persist of welcoming a new year with a concert featuring all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. I never attended one of those, offering as a weak excuse the fact that I was often working on New Year’s Eve (see previous post). But I like the idea, and often replicated it in my living room, choosing one or another of the many recordings I have of those pieces, sometimes mixing them up to enjoy the exciting contrast between the earlier and later recordings, the latter usually by historically informed performance groups. Here’s a playlist if you want to try it yourself. You can probably find all of these on YouTube:
As old-fashioned a version as can be. This is the first recording of the piece. That’s Dennis Brain’s father on horn, John Barbirolli’s wife on oboe.
* Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F - Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado (2007)
A small ensemble with original-instrument specialists (see below).
* Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G - English Chamber Orchestra, Raymond Leppard (1974)
A big sound with an intimate-style interpretation, and an unusually extended middle movement.
* Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in D - Concentus Musicus Wien, Nicholas Harnoncourt (1964)
The ensemble and conductor that really started the HIP movement - but by now
sounding comparatively restrained.
* Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini (2005)
Alessandrini, an early-music specialist, is also on harpsichord.
* Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in Bb - Chamber Orchestra, Fritz Reiner (1949)
Back to the big, pre-HIP sound, but from a conductor who loved Bach.
The provenance of these pieces remains delightfully uncertain. Bach put the six already-written pieces into a single package to present to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721, along with a typically fawning dedication to him. It’s not known whether the Margrave ever had them performed, and the manuscript was not among the effects catalogued after he died in 1734. The manuscript moved around, finally finding publication in 1750 – a century after Bach’s own death. Even then, it was only the Concerto No. 5, regarded as a harpsichord concerto, that proved popular.
So when did Bach write these works? Does it matter? Of course it does, because we adore these pieces so much that we can’t help but be curious. And the search turns up fascinating facts and speculations. The Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 is in F Major, scored for two horns, three oboes, bassoon, violino piccolo, two violins, viola, and continuo, typically a harpsichord and cello or cello-like instrument. Those horns – hunting horns, essentially – are a unique addition, making their debut in concerted music. Not that Bach hides their origin: Their entry into the first movement is with cascading hunting calls. The bassoon is also slipping into a limelight it hasn’t previously enjoyed.
But the work doesn’t pit soloists against ensemble, as you expect in a traditional concerto. It’s more of a concerto grosso, but with most of the instruments getting a shot at a solo spot. And it’s in four movements, not the usual three. Nicholas Harnoncourt speculated that the fourth movement was added as a calming influence; more recent scholarship suggests that the third was the added movement, giving solo moments to the violino piccolo, an instrument that looks like a child’s violin but with a full-sized fingerboard. Bach never wasted a note, supporting speculation that he adapted what had been a vocal piece for this movement, choosing the small violin because it better fit the range of the vocal part.
The Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 is, at first glance, a straightforward concerto grosso, with a small group (concertino) of trumpet, oboe, recorder, and violin accompanied by the larger group (ripieno) of string ensemble and continuo. But it’s difficult to hear that trumpet as an equal player. It’s too brilliant. A natural (valveless) horn in F would have required a virtuoso player, and even with the modern convenience of those valves, much skill is required. The second movement, marked Andante, is given to the concertino only, with continuo. But the trumpet sits that one out – it would have been too unbalanced. We welcome that instrument back in the lively Allegro assai that follows.
Keeping things varied, the third Brandenburg is scored for strings alone, a brief pair of merry movements joined by bridge of but one measure with two chords to do with as you will. You’ll hear recordings in which there’s little more than those two chords performed, while others (such as the Leppard recording mentioned above) go a little more wild. To get really technical, it’s a Phrygian half cadence, hearkening to Renaissance practices. The concerto as a whole is brief, and so is my description.
Because we want to get to number four, a brilliant piece written in D Major, the key that most favors the violin. It’s combined with two recorders (or flutes) in the concertino; ripieno is the usual gang of strings and continuo. I find it the most high-spirited of the bunch, with an impressively dazzling violin part in the outer movements. “It is purely a violin concerto,” says Nicholas Harnoncourt, “the most virtuosic violin concerto Bach ever wrote.” He also notes that a performance benefits from a rhythmic looseness, soon taken over by the violin. “The very first solo for the violin says, ‘I am in charge. I’m setting the rhythm. Everything until now was a well-behaved dialogue, but now I’ll be telling you what’s going to happen.’”
Bach doesn’t actually specify recorders in the instrumentation. He calls for “fiauti d’echo,” or echoing flutes, which sparked a controversy that has raged in the scholarly journals. “Fiauti d’echo” occurs nowhere else in Bach’s music – indeed, almost nowhere else, save for some concerts in England in the 1710s given by James Paisible. Thurston Dart argues that it was a “bird flageolet,” a small recorder-like instrument that sounded an octave above its written notes; Bernard Krainis suggests it merely meant recorders in G. Jeremy Montagu thinks they were recorders with an extra hole for an echo effect, while John Martin believes the designation called for a pair of different-sized recorders fastened together. And it goes on and on from there.
Harnoncourt solves the problem by sending the two recorder players offstage for the second movement, where the echo effect is most prominent. The concerto finishes with a two-voiced fugue theme hiding behind the dance-like character of the movement.
The best-known, most-played, probably best-loved of the bunch is number five, with flute, violin, and keyboard as the concertino – but it’s really a keyboard concerto. In fact, it’s the first keyboard concerto in history, pulling that instrument out of the relative anonymity of the continuo corner. It fools you at the opening of the piece, under that straightforward based-on-the-triad melody, acting as a continuo instrument, but then it unexpectedly takes center stage with what will be plenty of solo licks. In fact, the violin and flute get muscled out of prominence in this movement as the harpsichord hogs all the flashy passages. Then, to cap it all off, it has a sweeping, virtuosic, through-written cadenza just before the movement ends.
The second movement features only the three soloists, with the harpsichordist’s left hand playing continue while the right hand weaves among the other two instruments with melodic passages. Then the concluding Allegro brings back the ripieno, all joining in a lively gigue with some hints of fugue. You’ll find recordings galore of this concerto; my own library is swollen with them. I’m not going to try to pick a favorite, but I do stay away from recordings that use piano instead of harpsichord. It just doesn’t work with this piece.
Finally, the dark-hued sixth. It may be the most notorious of the set because it doesn’t call for any violins. Instead, it’s scored for two violas, two violas da gamba, cello, violone (like a double bass) and harpsichord. Bach himself played violin and viola and preferred the latter, according to one of his sons, because he liked to be in the world of inner voices.
Violists love this piece, but it’s probably the least-performed of the six, adding to the viola’s never-ending sense of neglect. It’s almost a concerto for two violas although the cello sneaks in from time to time make it a trio. The first movement opens with wonderful canonic cascades that provide a motif throughout. The gambas drop out of the slow movement, which has a compelling feeling of yearning, resolving only when the last movement begins. Like the third movement of the previous concerto, this one is a lively gigue that offers those violas more virtuosic passagework. No wonder this concerto makes violinists get jealously grumpy. But it’s fitting conclusion both to the piece and to the set of six. I’ll be listening to them all to start this new year – why don’t you?
And right now you can start your year with the most joyous performance I know of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. As recommended above, it’s played by the Orchestra Mozart with Claudio Abbado conducting; the soloists are Giuliano Carmignola, violin; Reinhold Friedrich, trumpet; Lucas Macías Navarro, oboe, and Michala Petri, recorders (she sneaks in a surprise at the end).
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