Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Brandenburg Concerto in D major, no. 5, BWV 1050
Brandenburg Concerto in B-flat major, no. 6, BWV 1051
Bach met Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, on a trip to Berlin in 1719. At the time, he was employed by a certain Prince Leopold of Cöthen but, a couple of years later, with Leopold about to marry and Bach sensing that his time at his court drawing to an end, he sent the Margrave a set of six “concertos for several instruments” in hopes of securing a position. Bach didn’t get that job – he ended up at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, instead – but the concerti remain associated with the Margrave’s name.
They had likely been performed in Cöthen before Bach sent them to the Ludwig and, in fact, he brought the parts with him when he moved to Leipzig in 1723. After that, though, the concerti faded into obscurity: only the Fifth, with its extraordinary solo harpsichord part and additional solo parts for flute and violin, seems to have been performed between Bach’s death in 1750 and the discovery of all the Brandenburg manuscripts in 1859.
The three movements of the Fifth Concerto follow a fast-slow-fast pattern. Its opening one balances busy exchanges between the three soloists and the supporting ensemble with the harpsichord playing for much of the movement’s duration (including a powerfully involved cadenza near the end). The lovely second movement is scored for soloists alone, while the finale is, like the first movement, corybantic.
The soloists in the Sixth Concerto are a pair of violas, one of Bach’s favorite instruments to play. This Concerto’s first movement features a driving canon for the solo instruments, while the lyrical (and rather soulful) Adagio flows without pause into a brilliant, syncopated Gigue-finale.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
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