Bach: Brandenburg Concerti 1-6 / Maute

When J.S .Bach sent his carefully handwritten score of Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments to the margrave of Brandenburg in 1721, he could never have imagined that these pieces would become the most famous concertos of the Baroque period, a success perhaps only paralleled by that of Antonio Vivaldi’s legendary violin concertos The Four Seasons. Yet it actually seems unlikely that this wonderful music was ever performed by the orchestra at the court of the margrave during Bach’s lifetime, and we can only be amazed at this strange fate of one of the greatest musical collections of all times. The six concertos were composed between 1712 and 1721 for various unrelated occasions, but it was in keeping with Bach’s nature that he felt compelled, when he went about assembling them into one collection, to attach a particular overriding concept to the set. In his dedication to the margrave of Brandenburg, Bach presented himself on the surface as the nobleman’s very humble and very obedient servant. This was standard practice, acquiescing to the strict hierarchical rules of the period according to which the nobility was considered to belong to the sphere of the gods; subordinate duties were left to people of lower social status, like musicians. However a closer look at the music itself reveals a strikingly different picture and one wonders if the full extent of its ramifications was actually understood by the dedicatee. If so, then we know for sure why these six concertos remained tucked away in a drawer of the court library! According to the ideas of Michael Marissen, as set forth in his book The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach’s Brandeburg Concertos, the six pieces move from a representation of stately sovereignty in the first concerto all the way down to a rather subversive situation in the sixth concerto, where the violas, traditionally associated with a lower musical status, take on the role of brilliant soloists, reigning over a small band of lower strings (gambas and cellos/violone). But here Bach pushed the envelope even further: written and performed at the court of Cöthen before being included in the collection of the Brandenburg Concertos, the piece was designed to fit a very specific configuration. Bach’s employer in Cöthen, Prince Leopold, was an amateur gambist who surely enjoyed performing from time to time with musicians of Bach’s caliber. Bach, the humble servant, dutifully obeyed, yet, once again, with a special twist: musically speaking, in the sixth Brandenburg Concerto the prince is demoted to a mere accompanist who is called upon to serve with straightforward repeated eighth notes the abundant and hence noble virtuosity of the eccentric viola parts. It is a world turned upside down, as is further demonstrated by the amusing fact that the gambists play the accompanying repeated eighth notes in the first movement with bow strokes opposite to those of the cello (up-down as opposed to down-up), thereby visually revealing their amateur status… Bach’s wit was indeed limitless! But what does Dmitri Shostakovich have to do with Bach’s music? When the Russian composer adjudicated at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1950, he was deeply impressed by Bach’s two collections of the Well-tempered Clavier. Upon returning to Moscow, Shostakovich followed Bach’s example and composed his own cycle of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys. Even though he holds firmly to his own musical language with its tonal liberties, his use of baroque elements provides a constant source of surprise. The rhythmic flow of the independent melodic lines seems to imitate Bach’s vigorous use of complementary rhythms, thereby adding a great sense of direction to both the preludes and the fugues.

Price: $25.98

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