Harpsichord Concerto in F minor BWV1056 — Johann Sebastian Bach

Movements

[Allegro]

Largo –

Presto

Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering BWV 1079 (1747)

Harpsichord Concerto in E major BWV 1053

[Allegro]

Siciliano

Allegro

Harpsichord Concerto in A major BWV 1055

Allegro

Larghetto

Allegro ma non tanto

Harpsichord Concerto in D minor BWV 1052

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro

As if he didn’t have enough to do as Kantor of St Thomas’s in Leipzig, where his duties included writing a church cantata for every Sunday and feast day, after six years in the post Bach took on the extra responsibility of director of the city’s Collegium Musicum. This was an association of professional and student musicians who gave concerts on a weekly basis – on winter evenings in Zimmermann’s coffee house, in summer afternoons in the coffee-garden outside the city walls – which greatly enhanced Leipzig’s musical life. It was for the Collegium Musicum that Bach wrote his seven concertos for harpsichord and strings as well as six others for two, three or even four harpsichords. The order in which they were written and the exact dates on which they were completed is not known. They clearly derive, however, from the period between 1729, when he took up his new post, and 1738, when he wrote out the seven solo concertos as a set.

It is not difficult to imagine what attracted Bach to the Collegium Musicum. Having by now accumulated an extensive repertoire of church cantatas, he must have felt he had the time to return to instrumental music, in which he had demonstrated such mastery in his previous post at Cöthen. It must have been a relief too to escape, if only temporarily, the carping interference of city authorities and work instead with like-minded musicians – including his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, who no doubt took part in the performances of the multiple concertos.

Why, on the other hand, he chose to concentrate with such intensity on the harpsichord, when his previous concertos had been for violin or woodwind soloists, is a more challenging question. There is a clue, however, in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto which, in spite of the solo participation of flute and violin, is virtually a harpsichord concerto and, as such, the first of its kind. Now is the time, Bach might have thought, with that earlier innovation in mind, to release the harpsichord from its continuo duties and present it as a concerto soloist. The fact that all the Leipzig concertos are arrangements of violin or oboe concertos could be taken in two ways. It is either symbolic of the new order or, more mundanely, an indication that the composer didn’t have time to create new works for the Collegium Musicum and turned instead to the much less onerous task of rescoring existing music. Either way, the harpsichord came out on top. Interestingly enough, in 1738 Handel became the first composer to publish a set of harpsichord concertos – arranged from a variety of sources – in his Op.4 for “organ or harpsichord” and strings.

Harpsichord Concerto in F minor

The first of the four concertos to be performed on this occasion, in F minor BWV 1056, is thought to be based on a now lost Violin Concerto in G minor. Although there is no tempo heading in the manuscript, the first movement is clearly an Allegro and is entirely characteristic of its kind. Alternating orchestral episodes based on the always recognisable opening theme, abbreviated though it sometimes might be, with melodically inventive solo episodes, it passes through a variety of keys to return to a last reminder of the main theme in F minor in the closing bars. The division between solo and ripieno is not as rigid as that might suggest, however, least of all in a subtly coloured passage of harpsichord figuration set against sustained harmonies on the strings.

The presence of the Largo in a version for oboe and strings in the Cantata No. 156 “Ich steh’ mit einem Fuss im Grabe” has led some commentators to conclude that BWV 1056 originated as an oboe concerto. It would be no less exquisitely expressive on violin, however, and with the necessary embellishments to sustain the melodic line it is perfectly well suited to the harpsichord too. One of four last movements in the set in 3/8 time, the Presto is constructed on a pattern similar to that of the opening Allegro, although canonic imitations and echo effects intensify the interchange between solo and ripieno.

Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering

The “Musical Offering” BWV 1079 is one of the three monumental creations, alongside the “Goldberg” Variations and the “Art of Fugue,” written in the last few years of Bach’s career. They are all, in a sense, variations on a theme. Only one of them is actually in variation form but each of the other two is based on one just one idea – the “Art of Fugue” on a subject by Bach himself, the “Musical Offering” on a melody supplied by no less a personage than Frederick the Great of Prussia. Persuaded no doubt by the composer’s son, Carl Philip Emmanuel, who was a court musician there, the King invited Johann Sebastian to Potsdam in 1747. As a musician himself, eager to test Bach’s famed skill in improvisation, he presented him with a theme which, in its length and its chromatic profile, does not lend itself at all easily to the fugal treatment he would have been expected to apply to it.

It is thought possible that the Ricercar in three parts, the piece that opens the work as it was eventually published and dedicated to His Majesty, was improvised on the spot on one of Frederick’s new Silbermann pianos. The rest of it -– including the present Ricercar, six canons, and a Trio sonata in four movements – was written within a few weeks of Bach’s return to Leipzig. It seems unlikely, on the other hand, that this second Ricercar (or fugue) was intended to be performed at the keyboard since it is written on six staves, one for each voice in the texture. Certainly, however, it is one of the most majestic works of its kind not least, as Bach himself observed, because of the regal quality of the theme. Frederick’s melody is actually heard twelve times, six times in the long opening exposition and then in alternation with a series of ingeniously varied episodes. Its last and most splendid entry is in the bass in the closing bars.

Harpsichord Concerto in E major

All three movement of the Concerto in E major BWV 1053, which is thought to derive ultimately from a flute or oboe concerto, appeared in two cantatas in 1726 – the first two in, respectively, the overture and an alto aria in Cantata No.169 “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben,” the third in the overture (featuring an oboe d’amore) in the overture to Cantata No.49 “Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen.” Even so it is one of the most developed of Bach’s concerto constructions and rather nearer to classical concerto form than most. The opening Allegro (which, in the absence of a tempo direction, one assumes it is) is in three distinct parts. Clearly signalled by an Adagio cadence, the recapitulation follows a central section where the soloist spins a decorative and apparently spontaneous melodic line while the orchestra offers discreet reminders of the main theme. The slow movement is a siciliano, its main theme introduced by violins in the gentle dotted rhythm characteristic of the dance and recalled by them at the end. The middle section, much the longest in this case, is another opportunity for melodic elaboration on the soloist’s part. The brilliantly scored final Allegro is also, like the first movement, in three main parts.

Harpsichord Concerto in A major

Based, it is thought, on a concerto for oboe d’amore, the Concerto in A major BWV 1055 begins with an Allegro of much same shape as that of BWV 1056 in F minor except that it has a more pronounced recapitulatory tendency. Returning to the home key at a comparatively early stage, it approaches the ternary structure of the corresponding movement of BWV 1053. Like the slow movement of the E major Concerto, the Larghetto is a siciliano but of a quite different kind. In this case the orchestra, insisting for the most part on an alternation of wide-spaced crotchets and quavers, seems so unaware of the serenely decorative melodic line of the harpsichord that, two thirds of the way through, they get involved in an extraordinary harmonic disagreement. The last movement is another 3/8 Allegro in the Italian manner and one of the most spectacular of its kind.

Harpsichord Concerto in D minor

The Concerto in D minor BWV 1052 has long been the popular favourite of the set. Although it derives from a now lost violin concerto and although all three movements had been used as cantata material– the first two as, respectively, the overture and opening chorus of Cantata No.146 “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal,” the third as the overture to No.188 “Ich habe mein Zuversicht” – it is an outstanding example of virtuoso keyboard music. This last quality is all the more remarkable in that much of the harpsichord writing betrays its string-instrument origins, as in the minimally accompanied solo episode in the first movement where violin barriolage is so colourfully translated into keyboard terms. There is, obviously, essentially keyboard figuration too, not least in a short but centrally placed cadenza. Harpsichord capriciousness is most effectively offset by the serious demeanour of a main theme introduced by strings in unison at the start and recalled in the same way at the end.

“We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,“ the words to which the Adagio is set in Cantata No.146, accurately reflect the disposition of music which treads with such fortitude on the strings (at first in unison again) while the harpsichord gives expressive voice to the thinking behind it. Without changing the key from D minor, which was central to both the first movements, the concluding Allegro clears the air, partly by way of its rhythmic verve but above all by the virtuoso exuberance which takes another passage of barriolage in its stride and sustains the pressure to the strategically placed cadenza just before the end.