IN 1 uch of Bach's chamber and orchestral music owes
its existence to the circumstances of his employ-
ment at the Court of Céthen in the six years be-
tween 1717 and 1723. During the previous nine years he had
been Court Organist at Weimar, where his duties obliged him
to concentrate on music for church use: organ music and,
from 1714 onwards, when he was “Concertmeister}’ church
cantatas. At Cothen his duties were somewhat different. The
Court Chapel was “reformed,” and, as if the Calvinist austerity
of the services was not a sufficient curb on Bach’s output of
sacred music, the organ was an inferior one, so that Céthen
remains an almost blank period for organ music as well as
church cantatas.
But Cothen had tts compensation in Bach’s development as
a composer. It was there that his court duties necessitated the
regular supply of secular instrumental music. Prince Leopold
of Anhalt-Céthen was a music-iover; Bach himself declared
in a letter that he not only loved music, but was proficient
and understanding in the art. He is known to have been an
accomplished baritone as well as a performer on the violin,
viola da gamba and ciavier. So while it is true that in Bach’s
day secular court music had not yet emancipated itself to an
existence independent of private patronage, and that the court
musician was One among so many retainers, it is equally true
that, given so cultivated a master as Bach had in the young
Prince Leopold, the atmosphere was conducive to musical
creation. Bach certainly found it so, for to his Céthen period
belong most of his concerted music and a great deal of his
clavichord and harpsichord music.
When Bach arrived in Cothen he had already a good knowl-
edge of the French and Italian secular music of the time, and
this was the music in vogue in court circles. The forms and
processes of these two schools Bach assimilated and made his
own. It was at Cothen that he developed the form of the con-
certo. The violin concertos of Vivaldi he knew—in Weimar he
had transcribed some of them for organ. He had used elements
of the concerto form in some of his previous music, but it was
not until his Céthen duties incited him to do so that he com-
posed violin concertos of his own.
CONCERTO iN A MINOR, BWV. 1041
(Side 1, Band 1, 14:53)
First Movement: Allegro
Second Movement: Andante
Third Movement: Allegro assai
in its three-movement form, the violin concerto in A minor
follows Italian models. The solo instrument is accompanied
by strings and continuo, and dynamic variety in the two
faster, outer movements is obtained by the contrast of tutti
passages alternating with those for the concertino (in this
case the solo violin) lightly accompanied by the ripieni ranks
of strings with the ever-present continuo or thorough-bass.
Bach has given no indication of tempo for the first move-
ment, but the brisk style of the opening tutti and its two-four
measure suggest an Allegro. On its entry, the solo violin intro-
duces a new theme, which it proceeds to elaborate, while the
strings and continuo accompany with segments of the opening
theme. When the opening theme returns, the solo instrument
no longer duplicates the ripieni violins but supplies a counter-
point. Soon the solo line introduces into its bustling sixteenth-
note movement an upward slide of two thirty-second-notes
which add a characteristic touch of excitement to the music.
Moduiations into C and E, and further developments, lead to
a reprise of the initial theme in the tenic key, with brief remind-
ers of the other formulae before the determined conclusion.
‘The slow movement is an Andante in common-time, nomi-
nally in C major, but this does not make it a cheerful move-
ment. Its profound feeling, even pathos, stems from the severe
but expressive strength of the ostinato bass figures on which it
is founded, and the frequently chromatic cast of the solo
violin’s cantilena with which this bass figure joins or alternates.
The music modulates to D minor, as if to stress its pathetic
urgency, before ending in its tonic C major.
The final Allegro assai is back in A minor, but in a bounc-
ing, gigue-like nine-eight measure. Its initial theme is exposed
fugally, the solo and ripieni first violins being followed by the
seconds, basses and, finally, violas. The texture thins to supply
a lighter accompaniment to the soloist’s new theme, the con-
tours of which are varied by trills and sixteenth-note runs.
These two elements are then developed until increased bravura
for the soloist leads to a climax and a pause. The basses then
resume the dance, closely followed by the solo and first violins,
and once again the texture thickens for a recapitulation of the
initial tutti, which rounds off the movement.
DOUBLE CONCERTO IN D MINoR, BWV. 1043
(Side 1, Band 2, 11:47)
First Movement: Vivace
Second Movement: Largo ma non tanto
(Side 2, Band 1, 5:20)
Third Movement: Allegro
‘The concerto in D minor, for two violins, written in Cothen
circa 1720, is perhaps the most beautiful of all his works in
this form, and justly popular.
The opening Vivace has two themes: The first is boldly
presented by the tutti in a fugal exposition, and the second
theme, with its wide skips of tenths, is for the concertino in
dialogue. This is interrupted by the ripieni strings’ interjecting
of the initial phrase of the first subject. After the second sub-
ject has been played. over in A minor, and rounded off by a
tutti for the first theme in the same key, there is development
through the keys of G minor and C minor before the second
theme reappears in the tonic, succeeded by the final tutti of
the first subject.
The central movement, Largo ma non tanto, is one of Bach's
most beautiful slow movements. In expressiveness it is far in
advance of those he took as models. The voices of the two
solo instruments twine around and echo each other (in one
phrase, slurred in one part and détaché in the other) in a way
that seems io epitomize utter peacefulness.
In the Allegro the close imitations of the opening tutti, and
its scurrying triplets, give the movement i‘s busting urgency.
The more deliberate contours of the succeeding piano stem its
rush, and in a third phrase the melodic outlines of diminished
sevenths add a touch of poignancy, before development leads
to the very determined final tutti.
CONCERTO IN E MAJor, BWV. 1042
(Side 2, Band 2, 19:00)
First Movement: Allegro
Second Movement: Adagio
Third Movement: Allegro assai
The first movement of Bach’s E major violin concerto falls,
like the work itself, into three sections. The first is based on
the clearly-defined theme, derived from the tonic common-
chord, heard at the outset. Soon the solo instrument detaches
itself from the accompanying strings, while segments of the
theme are used as counterpoints to its brisk, forward-thrusting
line. The middle section, in C sharp minor, more completely
emancipates the solo instrument, but not from the initial three-
note phrase which the ripieni strings intone at intervals be-
neath its moto perpetuo of sixteenth-notes. A climax and
cadence breaks off into two descending Adagio bars for the
solo violin, after which there is an exact repeat of the opening
section.
In the moving and meditative Adagio in C sharp minor, the
solo violin weaves its expressive patterns above an ostinato in
the basses.
In contrast to the sturdy alla breve of the opening Allegro,
the final one is in a blithe, good-humored rondo in three-eight
time. It opens with the refrain which rounds off each of the
solo violin’s four excursions, including the last, which, having
wandered far from the home key, is brought firmly back to
roost in E major.
© 1900. FELIX APRAHAMIAN
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