Brandenburg Concertos

The Brandenburg concertos are amazing

I have finally sat down and listened to all six Brandenburg concertos in one sitting and holy hell it was amazing. This really is Bach at his best, the composition is insane and so perfect that sometimes my ears did not want to believe it. I cannot explain this feeling, but it really felt like my ears were trying to reject what was happening or pass them off to my mind as a hallucination.

Definitely listen to them if you have about 1.5 hours depending on which recording you listen to.

Little history lesson

The Brandenburg Concertos or as originally titled: Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments which is French for Six Concertos for several instruments, were sent to Christian Ludwig von Brandenburg-Schwedt who was a Markgraf, which was a noble title back then in Germany. Bach sent these concertos to him as a sort of job application, as his employment as the director of music at the Köthen court was coming to an end, and he was looking for further stable work, and the King’s younger brother would’ve been perfect for this. Bach has met Christian Ludwig a few years back when he told him to send him some of his compositions and here he was doing that. Apparently it is thought that the Concertos were never played at the court of Christian Ludwig though as there were not enough or not skilled enough musicians there to play the pieces and that the manuscripts just sat in his estate until his eventual death.

I have looked up why the original title and accompanying letter were written in French as it bugged me why two German man would talk French between each other and thought that Christian Ludwig despite his name might’ve been French since during these times every nobleman was put there by their relatives who might have been of a completely different nationality. It is also interesting that even the ‘Concertos’ are in the French form of ‘Concerts’ instead of the Italian ‘Concerti’, what you would expect because of the genre of the music. As it turns out, they both were actually German, but in these times it was customary in the higher echelons of society to speak French to each other as that was seen as more aristocratic. Also, apparently (since I do not speak French, much less 18th century French) Bach’s French was also very rigid.

Interesting to note, while the second paragraph here lets you guess, but Bach has never used the name Brandenburg Concertos only the one on the title that he sent the compositions with. This name was later popularized in the 1870s by a biographer called Philipp Spitta (take this with a grain of salt though as I could not find explicit conformation that he was the one that came up with this name, only that possibly he was, or if not him who else).

About the concertos

This will just be a short description of each, however I think it is impossible to overstate how amazing they are, but I will not keep mentioning it in lieu of being annoying, so please just listen to it, or if you don’t feel ready to listen to it, if there is one movement you will listen to, please listen to the first movement of the second concerto.

The first is a combination of some of his older work. The concerto also exists in an alternative version, Sinfonia BWV 1071 which was likely composed during Bach’s time in Weimar. This lacks the third movement entirely, and the Polacca from the final movement was apparently intended as an opening of the Cantata BWV 208. The first movement can also be found in a different version in Cantata BWV 52. And the third movement can also be found in a different version in the Cantata BWV 207, where the horns are replaced by trumpets (let me tell you that I do like that version more as trumpets are amazing, and definitely more amazing than horns).

This is also the only concerto with four movements, all the other have three. This part feature mainly horns, a bassoon, oboes violins and a bass section.

The second one is definitely my favourite. It is simply just flawless. It has a super difficult trumpet part in the first movement, which turns out was written for an a trumbet playing a very high register called clarino, in which it can only ever play in major keys by its construction, and probably specifically written for the clarino specialist in the Cöthen court called Johann Ludwig Schreiber. The trumpet does not even play in the second movement probably because of this as the second movement of concerti are usually in a minor key and a clarino would not have been able to play here apparently, which is also a very interesting historical fact, and it is insane to me how much, small things influence other things. The oboe is also absolutely amazing in this!

In the third one, to me the most interesting is definitely the second movement which features only a harpsichord playing for a singular bar and that is the whole movement. This was very interesting to me as it is just a single measure with two chords that make up a phrygian cadence. Sometimes it is performed as a small musical break but occasionally, other slow movements from Bach pieces, such as the Largo from the Sonata BWV 1021 and the Largo BWV 1019, are substituted for the second movement as they contain an identical phrygian cadence as the closing chords. The third movement is also just so beautiful with the violins and violas and cellos just going back and forth and trying to convince each other who is playing the measurer prettier and with more feeling.

The fourth and fifth one contain a lot of virtuosic parts for the violin and harpsichord respectively, they are also special because each of their movements have proper tempo marking as opposed to the other four where the first movements do not have tempo markings and are usually played in allegro based on the structure of the concerto. It is also interesting that in the fourth one Bach writes ‘due Fiauti d’Echo’ so two echo-y flutes, which is debatable as to what he meant by those instruments. In some performances like the ones conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt the two recorders are put off-stage to get a more echo-y sound. The fifth one is thought to mainly have been written to show off a good harpsichord and player or for a competition in Dresden.

The sixth one is also absolutely amazing featuring only bow instruments and a harpsichord but no violins. It is also a great example of how amazing Bach was at polyphony as the instruments slowly come in, in the first movement to continue the development of the piece, while the violas are playing just behind one another and somehow all the harmony still works out perfectly.

About different recordings

I have after having listened to the whole thing in one sitting have also started to wonder how different, different recordings are as for example the first movement of the second concerto and the first movement of the sixth one were not as great as in the recordings I have been listening to since I did listen to some movements individually just not the whole thing at once before. Turns out there is quite a lot. Mainly in the instrumentation as a lot of recordings try to use instruments that are faithful to the ones Bach would’ve imagined, but only to varying degree. For example if you do not stick with original instrumentation or close to it, in the second concerto you would use lower oboes and a piccolo trumpet instead of the natural trumpet and oboes. There is also a huge difference in players as in most recordings the trumpet player or the violin player do make mistakes in their respective very hard solos. And the third difference is in the tempo markings and how a certain conductor interprets them or for the movements without tempo markings what tempo they use. The tuning is also usually different depending on how we estimate what Bach would have used or even care about it and don’t just use modern tunings.

I used as control the first movement of the second concerto, the first movement of the fourth concerto and the third movement of the sixth concerto and listened to the following recordings. The one I listened to fully was from the Frieburger Barockorchester, and since then I have also listened to the whole one by the Müncener Bach-Orchester conducted by Karl Richter. I have listened to the control pieces by Musica Antiqua Köln, Trevor Pinnock’s English Concert, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Le Concert des Nations, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

If I had to choose a favourite it is definitely the rendition by the Münchener Bach-Orchestra. They use modern instruments that make some parts much clearer and cleaner in my opinion and the players are just incredibly as I did not remember hearing a single missed note. I sometimes don’t agree with the tempo for example in the first movement of the fourth concerto I would definitely play it faster however for that movement I listen to the Musica Antiqua Köln or the Freiburger Orchestra version, but overall for me that is the best version.

Closing thoughts

If I had to rank them it would look something like 2-4-6-1-3-5, but my trumpet player bias is showing heavily in this ranking. Other than that do listen to the Brandenburg Concertos at once, they are amazing, Bach is amazing.