Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Perform Brandenburg Concertos

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 21 December 2023 15:27

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima.

At Alice Tully Hall—on the evening of Tuesday, December 19th—I had the enormous pleasure of attending another superb concert presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: the last of this year’s annual performances of the magnificent Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In an informative set of notes for the program, Laura Keller provides some useful background on the genesis of these works:

They were named after Christian Ludwig, the margrave of Brandenburg, whom Bach met only once—in 1719 during a trip to Berlin. The margrave asked for some of Bach’s music, but it took two years for the composer to deliver, at which time his employer, Prince Leopold of Cöthen, was having financial difficulties and Bach was probably looking for leads on a new job. Bach gathered six concertos with vastly different instrumentations, made revisions, and sent them to the margrave in March 1721. Not only did he not get a job, but there is no record that the margrave ever listened to them or even acknowledged Bach’s gift. The Brandenburgs remained virtually unknown until they were rediscovered and published in 1850.

She adds:

By the time Bach died, his music had fallen out of favor. His unparalleled counterpoint remained an example of the high Baroque style for students and connoisseurs, but it went largely unperformed. It was not until 1829, when Felix Mendelssohn conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, that a wider audience took a renewed interest in his music. An enthusiastic period of Bach performances and research ensued: a full-scale Bach Revival. The rediscovery of the Brandenburgs took another 20 years, but they were eventually published in 1850 as part of the first complete edition of Bach’s works. Around 1880, Bach biographer Philipp Spitta coined the nickname “Brandenburg Concertos” to replace what Bach had called “Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments” (Six Concertos for various instruments). With those many developments, our modern understanding of the Brandenburgs was created. 

She writes that,

The First Brandenburg Concerto may be the oldest of the six, as there is an early version (without the third movement) believed to have been composed in 1713. It is unclear why Bach added the third movement, as this is the only Brandenburg Concerto with four movements. This concerto calls for the largest ensemble of the six, including a wind section with three oboes, bassoon, and two horns. The winds are featured throughout, but especially in the full-textured first movement and in the last movement, a compilation of dances. The pieces also includes the piccolo violin, a small, higher-pitched violin that essentially disappeared by the 19th century and is best remembered today for its role in this piece and in Bach’s 1731 cantata Wachet auf.

The initial Allegro movement is not without its emotional depths—despite an engaging surface—that come to the fore in the ensuing, somber Adagio—which was used to memorable effect in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s extraordinary 1961 film, Accattone. With the third movement, also marked Allegro, the music returns to a brighter mood, while the finale begins with an elegant Menuet, followed by a somewhat playful but surprisingly austere Trio, and concludes with a Polonaise that contains some of the work’s most energetic moments.

The marvelous soloists in the second concerto were Tara Helen O’Connor on flute, Stephen Taylor on oboe, Stella Chen on violin, and—most prominently—David Washburn on piccolo trumpet. The opening Allegro is sprightly—but again with more serious undercurrents—succeeded by a sober Andante with lyrical qualities and an effervescent finale,with a tempo of Allegro assai.

Keller remarks that,

In the Third Brandenburg, there is no differentiation between soloists and accompanying strings. The nine string players take turns playing solo and ensemble parts. With three violins, three violas, and three cellos playing over the continuo line, it has the most homogenous sound of all the Brandenburgs, a stark contrast to the others. The tightly knit strings work together and play off each other to generate exuberant momentum that sweeps inexorably forward. This is also the shortest of the Brandenburgs, partly because it does not have a slow movement—just two brief chords. The first violinist often plays a short cadenza, or a short movement from another Bach piece, to ornament what would otherwise be a simple half cadence.

The beginning Allegro is bewitching but it too has more profound shadings while the finale, with the same tempo-marking, is more dynamic and is fugue-like in its intricacy, and closer in style to the concertos of Antonio Vivaldi who famously influenced Bach.

For the fourth concerto, the wonderful soloists were Richard Lin on violin, with flutists O’Connor and Demarre McGill. The first movement, an Allegro, is enchanting, with dazzling violin passages, preceding an Andante almost tragic in mood—but with some affirmative elements—and a sparkling Presto finale.

Keller records that,

The Fifth Brandenburg is special, even in this set of highly contrasted concertos. Not only is Bach’s instrument, the harpsichord, included in the group of solo instruments (with flute and violin), but it is the first keyboard concerto of all time. Before this concerto, the harpsichord typically played accompaniment—its solo opportunities came only when it played completely alone. The reason for the unusual choice was probably to feature a new harpsichord, one that Bach brought home from a 1719 trip to Berlin (the same trip on which he met the margrave).

Hyeyeon Park was brilliant on the harpsichord—receiving abundant applause after the first movement—along with McGill on flute and Ani Kavafian on violin. The piece started with a buoyant Allegro that has some darker inflections, continuing with an Affetuoso movement that has an almost elegiac character at times, and ending with another—dance-like—Allegro.

Keller comments that,

Bach wrote the Sixth Brandenburg for another unusual ensemble. It features a pair of solo violas—which in the Baroque era typically played harmony parts within the string ensemble—accompanied by parts for two violas da gamba (here performed on cellos) and continuo. The viola da gamba was the instrument played by Bach’s employer at Cöthen, Prince Leopold, and was usually a solo instrument. “Bach reversed these roles, such that the violas perform virtuosic solo lines while the viols amble along in repeated eighth notes,” writes Bach scholar Michael Marissen. “Pursuing these two radical instrumental treatments within the same work was unprecedented (and wouldn’t be imitated). . . . These kinds of inversions played a significant part in Christian scripture, which frequently proclaims that with God the first shall be last while the last shall be first.”

The admirable soloists here were Lawrence Dutton—formerly of the Emerson String Quartet—and Matthew Lipman. The first movement is a captivating, propulsive Allegro, while the second—marked Adagio ma non tanto—is meditative but also songful and the finale is stately on the whole but with some more forceful passages. The artists received a deservedly enthusiastic ovation.