The second movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 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.īut Bach also shows us that great art is so much more than just complexity for its own sake. They have a deeply beautiful two-chord movement.And in the sixth concerto, he placed two violas (that were considered rather low-rent at the time), equally alongside two violins, then considered the most aristocratic of instruments, which the prince himself played.īach scholar Michael Marissen explains how aristocratic audiences would have listened to these concertos live and heard this all as an “egregious breach of musical and social decorum” and a musical illustration of a “world upside down”, as societal norms began to be turned on their heads and Bach showed that all of us – whether trumpet, viol, viola or violin – are equal. In the fourth concerto, a lofty solo violin part is continually overshadowed by a duo of lowly recorders. And it would not have gone unnoticed within the ruling class.īach’s music was never really that political, but it did reflect his deeply held Lutheran and scriptural ideals: that the lowly shall be exalted, and the last shall be first, and that heavenly joy was for all. Yet, in these concertos, Bach did just that.īach was a traditionalist, so he kept things outwardly straight, but in the subtle and inner details of his concertos, he made his statements. Dances, instrumentation and movements were all in a strict style, and you probably didn’t want to ruffle too many aristocratic feathers in your music. Before he had bundled them up and popped them in the mailbox to the Musgrave, they would have very likely been performed at grand evenings at Leopold’s palace.Ĭourt music at the time was full of pomp, conventions and puff. 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 were subversive and spoke truth to power. 1 in F major, BWV 1046 (Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado)
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