Scholars now believe that Bach intended the works to be considered as a systematically conceived cycle, rather than an arbitrary series of pieces. Compared to his other suite collections, the cello suites are the most consistent in order of their movements. In addition, to achieve a symmetrical design and go beyond the traditional layout, Bach inserted intermezzo movements in the form of pairs between the sarabande and the gigue. Only five movements in the entire set of suites are completely non-chordal, consisting of a single melodic line. These are the second minuet of Suite No. 1, the second minuet of Suite No. 2, the second bourrée of Suite No. 3, the gigue of Suite No. 4 and the sarabande of Suite No. 5. The second gavotte of Suite No. 5 features only a unison chord (the same note played on two strings at the same time), but only in the original scordatura version of the suite.
The prelude, Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007, the best known movement from the entire set of suites, offers a dazzling display of arpeggiated chords and has regularly featured in many forms of modern media. It opens with an arpeggiated figure that takes full advantage of the natural resonance of the cello, rendering a motion-filled music that combines forward direction with a calm feeling of tonal colour. The suite goes on to explore a wide variety of moods and emotions, encountering dissonances and resolutions, melodic shapes, unexpected harmonic progressions and an inventive implied 3-voice composition. Bach’s use of the various registers of the cello to enhance depth of emotion signals his rapid development in the art of music-making.
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
The title page of Anna Magdalena Bach’s manuscript: ‘Suites á Violoncello Solo senza Basso’
The first page of the original manuscript
The first page of the score
Cello, front and side view. The endpin at the bottom can be adjusted for height in accordance to the player.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
Tragedy struck once again for Bach in 1720, when his wife Maria Barbara died suddenly and unexpectedly. At the time he was absent, accompanying his employer, the Duke of Köthen, who was taking the waters at the Carlsbad spa and required musicians to entertain him during the treatment. When Bach had left the family home, Maria Barbara was in normal health; but on his return two months later, he was shocked to hear that she had died and been buried on 7 July. The cause of her death remains unknown, but speculations include infectious disease or complications from pregnancy. During thirteen years of marriage, she had borne seven children, three of whom died at an early age.
In spite of personal tragedy, this period witnessed the composer’s most prolific output. Among the many innovative pieces he produced, none have received as much attention as the Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046–1051 — a collection of six instrumental works dedicated to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721. The composer had met with the music-loving margrave after being sent to Berlin by Prince Leopold in 1719. Bach appreciated Ludwig’s interest in his compositions and two years later dedicated his Six Concerts Avec plusieures Instruments to the nobleman. Now, they are widely regarded as some of the finest orchestral compositions of the Baroque era; yet, in effect, they could be likened to a failed job application.
Following his wife’s untimely death, Bach’s position at Köthen was becoming less desirable and he was keen for a new start. His employer was also reallocating funds from music to his palace guard, most likely due to the fact that the Prince’s new wife was no lover of music. Therefore, Bach sent the beautifully rendered score of the Brandenburg Concertos to the Margrave in 1721, hoping to secure a lucrative new position. There is no known response to Bach’s political overture, but he certainly failed to win the position he hoped for. Indeed, there is no evidence that the Margrave even heard the pieces played.
Brandenburg Concerto.No.1 in F Major, BWV 1046 is the only concerto of the six to feature four movements:
Allegro or Allegro moderato
Adagio in D minor
Allegro
Menuet – Trio I – Menuet da capo – Polacca – Menuet da capo – Trio II – Menuet da capo
The piece is scored for two corni da caccia (natural horns), three oboes, bassoon, violino piccolo, two violins, viola, cello and basso continuo. The first concerto is once again indebted to Vivaldi, whose scores Bach spent many hours copying out, analysing his use of contrast, rhythmic propulsion and orchestration. It was not unusual for Italian composers to produce concertos for widely varying combinations of instruments, and Bach’s shifting textures demonstrate the influence of southern composers. However, Bach’s novel handling of the Italian concerto form would find no rival throughout the Baroque era. His introducing of hunting horns, three oboes and a bassoon, as well as continuo strings and the violino piccolo, were particularly un-Italian elements. The sound of the horns is at once distinctive, though Bach is able to blend them into the ensemble through the use of multiple winds. Each movement of the concerto employs a rapid pace and extraordinary counterpoint, exploring the endless contrasts between the small concertino group and the tutti ensemble. The horn and the violino piccolo noticeably provide an innovative quality to the music.
The Brandenburg Concertos contain some of Bach’s most adventurous orchestrations. They went on to change the course of music, demonstrating the endless potential of an already-established form. The pieces afford each instrumental family solo opportunities, with unusual combinations, like the inclusion of violas and violas da gamba in Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 or the exciting use of the harpsichord in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Each of the six pieces has its own devoted admirers, from the elaborate first, the stately second, the endearing, yet homely third, the towering fourth and the galloping fifth, culminating with the glorious sixth.
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
Christian Ludwig (1677-1734) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and a military officer of the Prussian Army. The margravial title was given to princes of the Prussian Royal House and did not express a territorial status. He is best known as the recipient of Bach’s ‘Brandenburg Concertos’.
Schwedt Castle in 1669 — Brandenburg-Schwedt was a secundogeniture of the Hohenzollern margraves of Brandenburg, established by Prince Philip William, who took his residence at Schwedt Castle.
The first page of the autograph score
The first page of the score
Probable portrait of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), c. 1723
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, BWV 846
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
Bach’s second wife was Anna Magdalena Wilcke, who was born at Zeitz, in the Electorate of Saxony, to a musical family. Her father, Johann Caspar Wilcke (c.1660–1733), was a trumpet player, who enjoyed a successful career. In 1721 Anna was employed as a singer at the ducal court of Köthen, where Bach had been working since 1717. They were married on 3 December 1721, seventeen months after the death of Bach’s first wife. Close to this time, Bach’s employer Leopold married Frederica Henriette of Anhalt-Bernburg. Due to the Princess’ disinterest in music and certain budgetary constraints, musical life in Köthen saw a swift decline.
Nevertheless, this did not prevent Bach from producing what would later be regarded as one of the most important works in the history of Western classical music. The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846–893 is a collection of two series of Preludes and Fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, composed for solo keyboard (clavier). At the time of his second marriage, Bach produced a book of the preludes and fugues, stating they were “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study”. Twenty years later Bach compiled a second book of the same kind, which became known as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part Two.
Both parts contain twenty-four pairs of prelude and fugue. The first pair is in C major, the second in C minor, the third in C-sharp major,
the fourth in C-sharp minor, and so on. The rising chromatic pattern continues until each key has been represented, finishing with a B minor fugue. Bach re-uses several preludes and fugues from earlier sources; for instance, the 1720 Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach contains versions of eleven of the preludes of the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The C-sharp major prelude and fugue in book one was originally in C major – Bach added a key signature of seven sharps and adjusted some accidentals to convert it to the required key.
Bach’s title suggests that he had written for a 12-note well-tempered tuning system in which all keys sounded in tune. The opposing system in Bach’s day was meantone temperament in which keys with various accidentals sound out of tune. Bach would have been familiar with different tuning systems, and in particular as an organist would have played instruments tuned to a meantone system.
The Well-Tempered Clavier offers an extraordinarily wide range of musical styles, as the preludes are formally free, apart from adopting typical Baroque melodic forms, often coupled to an extended free. The pieces are also notable for their irregular numbers of measures, in terms of both the phrases and the total number of measures in a given prelude. Each fugue is marked with the number of voices, from two to five. Most are three- and four-voiced fugues, while there are only two five-voiced fugues (BWV 849 and 867) and one two-voiced fugue (BWV 855). The fugues employ a full range of contrapuntal devices, though they are generally more compact than Bach’s fugues for organ.
Both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier were widely circulated in manuscript, but printed copies were not made until 1801, by three publishers almost concurrently in Bonn, Leipzig and Zurich. Bach’s style went out of favour close to the time of his death and most music in the early Classical period had neither contrapuntal complexity nor a great variety of keys. However, with the maturing of the Classical style in the 1770’s, The Well-Tempered Clavier once again exacted a powerful influence on the course of musical history, with Haydn and Mozart studying the work closely.
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
Title page of ‘Das Wohltemperierte Clavier’, Book I, autograph
Bach’s autograph of the 4th Fugue of Book I
Clavecin Royal, Johann Gottlob Wagner, Dresden 1788, in Bachhaus Eisenach
The title page of ‘Singende Muse an der Pleiße’, a collection of strophic songs published in Leipzig in 1736, by Johann Sigismund Scholze. It has been suggested that the two people depicted may be Bach and his second wife Anna Magdalena.
Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
In 1723 Bach’s search for a new position came to an end, when he was appointed Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. This position included providing music for four churches in the city, the St. Thomas Church, St. Nicholas Church, the New Church and St. Peter’s Church. Now he was the leading cantor in Protestant Germany, placed in the mercantile city in the Electorate of Saxony and Bach would hold this distinguished position for twenty-seven years until his death. During that time he gained further prestige through honorary appointments at the courts of Köthen and Weissenfels, as well as that of the Elector Frederick Augustus in Dresden. Bach was also required to instruct the students of the Thomasschule in singing, as well as teaching Latin, though he was allowed to employ four deputies to fulfil this role. A cantata was required for the church services on Sundays and additional church holidays during the liturgical year.
On his arrival at Leipzig, he inherited a professional music staff of four town pipers, three violinists and an apprentice. At the age of forty-eight, some may have gone so far as to say that the position of Thomaskantor was a backward move in his career. Nevertheless, he relished the new challenges before him and set about his work at once, building up his team of musicians, recruiting from his school and the nearby university.
Originally composed in 1717, Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, also known as the ‘Bach Double’, came with Bach from his previous position as director of music for Prince Leopold of Anhalt at Köthen. Soon after arriving in Leipzig, he made a transcription for two harpsichords. When the Köthen version of the work was lost, Bach specialists were able to reconstruct the piece from the harpsichord version.
Scored for two solo violins, continuo and strings, the piece follows the typical Baroque concerto pattern of three movements (fast-slow-fast). The interplay between the soloists is exquisite as the melodies interweave in a continual stream of contrapuntal melodies and is considered among the best examples of concerto music-making of the late Baroque period. The concerto is characterised by the subtle, yet expressive relationship between the violins throughout the work. The musical structure of the piece employs fugal imitations and, of course, experimental and innovative use of counterpoint. Yet, it is the second, slow movement that is popularly regarded as one of the composer’s most sublime creations.
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
The first page of the score of the Double Concerto
St. Thomas Church at Leipzig
Statue of Bach at St. Thomas Church
Inside St. Thomas Church
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147
AMAZON APPLE GOOGLE SPOTIFY YOUTUBE SCORES
A church cantata is a musical form composed to be performed during a liturgical service. The church calendar of the German Reformation era had, without counting Reformation Day and days between Palm Sunday and Easter, 72 occasions for which a cantata could be presented. Composers like Georg Philipp Telemann composed cycles of church cantatas comprising all 72 of these occasions. In some places, including Bach’s new home in Leipzig, no concerted music was allowed for the three last Sundays of Advent, nor for the Sundays of Lent, so the typical year cycle comprised only 64 cantatas. It is believed that Bach wrote a total of 200 cantatas during his time in Leipzig.
Bach composed the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben BWV 147, which translates as ‘Heart and mouth and deed and life’, in 1723 during his first year as director of church music in Leipzig. It forms part of his first cantata cycle in the city and was written for the Marian feast of the Visitation on 2 July, commemorating Mary’s visit to Elizabeth as narrated in the Gospel of Luke in the prescribed reading for the feast day. Bach based the music on his previous cantata BWV 147a, originally composed in Weimar in 1716 for Advent. He expanded it from six movements to ten movements in two parts in the new work. While the text of the Advent cantata was written by the Weimar court poet Salomo Franck, the librettist of the adapted version, who added several recitatives, remains anonymous.
The first movement is scored for choir and the full orchestra. The inner movements are alternating recitatives and arias for solo singers and mostly obbligato instruments. Both parts are concluded with a chorale stanza, both from the same hymn and set in the same manner. Bach scored the work for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble: trumpet, two oboes, oboe da caccia, two violins, viola and basso continuo. The opening chorus, “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” delivers the complete words in three sections, the third reprising the first and even the middle section not different in character. An instrumental ritornello (a recurring passage in Baroque music) is heard in the beginning and in the end as well as, slightly changed, in all three sections with the choir woven into it. In striking contrast, all three sections conclude with a part accompanied only by basso continuo. Sections one and three begin with a fugue with colla parte instruments. The fugue subject stresses the word Leben (life) extended over three measures. The soprano starts the theme, followed by the alto one measure later, then the tenor two more measures after that, before the bass one measure later. This fast succession results with a lively impression of a happy and untied ‘life’. In the final section the pattern of entrances is the same, but builds from the lowest voice to the highest.
Today, the cantata is best remembered for Jesu, Joy of
Man’s Desiring, appearing in the last and tenth movement. A transcription by the English pianist Myra Hess (1890–1965) was published in 1926 for piano solo and in 1934 for piano duet. Often performed slowly and reverently at wedding ceremonies, as well as during Christian festive seasons like Christmas and Easter, it is scored for voices with trumpet, oboes, strings and continuo. Below is a common English version of the piece, written by the poet laureate Robert Bridges. It is not a translation of the stanzas used within Bach’s original version, but is inspired by the stanzas of the same hymn composed in 1642 by Johann Schop, which Bach had drawn upon: “Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne”, the lyrics of which were written in 1661 by Martin Janus.
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,
Holy wisdom, love most bright;
Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring
Soar to uncreated light.
Word of God, our flesh that fashioned,
With the fire of life impassioned,
Striving still to truth unknown,
Soaring, dying round Thy throne.
Through the way where hope is guiding,
Delphi Masterworks of Johann Sebastian Bach (Illustrated) (Delphi Great Composers Book 3) Page 2