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The organ concertos of
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
are solo works for
organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...
, transcribed and reworked from instrumental concertos originally composed by
Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 â€“ 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
and the musically talented
Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar (german: Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar) (25 December 1696 – 1 August 1715) was a German prince, son by his second marriage of Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Despite his early death he is remembered as a col ...
. While there is no doubt about the authenticity of BWV 592–596, the sixth concerto
BWV 597 The organ concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach are solo works for organ, transcribed and reworked from instrumental concertos originally composed by Antonio Vivaldi and the musically talented Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. While there is no dou ...
is now probably considered to be spurious. Composed during Bach's second period at the court in
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
(1708–1717), the concertos can be dated more precisely to 1713–1714.Boyd 2006
pp. 80–83
/ref>Breig 1997Jones 2007
pp. 140–153
/ref>Williams 2003
pp. 201–224
/ref>Schulenberg 2013
pp. 117–139
and footnote
pp. 461–3
/ref> Bach also made several transcriptions of Vivaldi's concertos for single, two and four harpsichords from exactly the same period in Weimar. The original concertos were picked from Vivaldi's Op.3, ''
L'estro armonico ''L'estro armonico'' (''The Harmonic Inspiration''), opus number, Op. 3, is a set of 12 concertos for stringed instruments by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, first published in Amsterdam in 1711. Vivaldi's Twelve Trio Sonatas, Op. 1 (Vivaldi), ...
'', composed in 1711, a set of twelve concertos for one, two and four
violins The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
. The publication of these Bach transcriptions by
C.F. Peters Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800. History The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel ...
in the 1850s and Breitkopf & Härtel in the 1890s played a decisive role in the Vivaldi revival of the twentieth century.


Weimar concerto transcriptions

In his Weimar period Bach transcribed concertos by, among others,
Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 â€“ 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
and
Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar (german: Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar) (25 December 1696 – 1 August 1715) was a German prince, son by his second marriage of Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Despite his early death he is remembered as a col ...
for organ and for harpsichord. Most of the harpsichord transcriptions probably originated between July 1713 and July 1714. The organ concertos, BWV 592–596, are scored for two manual keyboards and pedal, and probably originated from 1714 to 1717.


Concerto in G major, BWV 592

This concerto is a transcription of Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar's . Bach arranged the same concerto for harpsichord (
BWV 592a Apart from his orchestral keyboard concertos and his solo organ concertos, Johann Sebastian Bach composed keyboard concertos for unaccompanied harpsichord: * Most of his Weimar concerto transcriptions, over twenty arrangements of Italian and It ...
). Movements: # ithout tempo indication – "Allegro assai" in the original# Grave (E minor) # ithout tempo indication – "Presto e staccato" in the original, "Presto" in Bach's harpsichord version


Concerto in A minor, BWV 593

This concerto is a transcription of . Movements: # ithout tempo indication – "Allegro" in Vivaldi's original# Adagio (D minor; "Larghetto e spiritoso" in Vivaldi's original) # Allegro (senza pedale a due claviere)


Concerto in C major, BWV 594

This concerto is a transcription of Antonio Vivaldi's ''
Grosso mogul ''Grosso mogul'', also ''Il grosso mogul'', or capitalised '' lGrosso Mogul'' ( heGreat Moghul), RV 208, is a violin concerto in D major by Antonio Vivaldi. The concerto, in three movements, is an early work by the Venetian compose ...
'' violin concerto in D major, RV 208, of which a variant, RV 208a, was published as Op. 7 No. 11. Movements: # ithout tempo indication – "Allegro" in Vivaldi's original# Recitativ: Adagio (A minor; "Recitative: Grave" in Vivaldi's original) # Allegro - Cadenza - Allegro


Concerto in C major, BWV 595

A transcription of the first movement of a lost concerto by Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, which has been reconstructed as a . Only one movement, without tempo indication, but also indicated as Allegro. Exists in a variant for harpsichord, BWV 984 (first movement).


Concerto in D minor, BWV 596

# llegro # Pieno. Grave – Fuge # Largo e spiccato # llegro This transcription of Vivaldi's Concerto in D minor for two violins and obbligato violoncello, Op.3, No.11 (RV 565), had the heading on the autograph manuscript altered by Bach's son
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (22 November 17101 July 1784), the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer. Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist, improviser and composer ...
who added "di W. F. Bach manu mei Patris descript" sixty or more years later. The result was that up until 1911 the transcription was misattributed to Wilhelm Friedemann. Despite the fact that Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin where many Bach manuscripts were held, had suggested Johann Sebastian as the author, the transcription was first published as a work by Wilhelm Friedemann in 1844 in the edition prepared for
C.F. Peters Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800. History The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel ...
by Friedrich Griepenkerl. The precise dating and true authorship was later established from the manuscript: the handwriting and the watermarks in the manuscript paper conform to cantatas known to have been composed by Bach in Weimar in 1714–1715. The autograph manuscript is remarkable for its detailed specifications of organ registration and use of the two manuals. As explained in , their main purpose was to enable the concerto to be heard at Bach's desired pitch. The markings are also significant for what they show about performance practise at that time: during the course of a single piece, hands could switch manuals and organ stops could be changed. First movement. From the outset in the original piece, Vivaldi creates an unusual texture: the two violins play as a duet and then are answered by a similar duet for obbligato cello and continuo bass. On the organ Bach creates his own musical texture by exchanging the solo parts between hands and having the responding duet on a second manual. For , Bach's redistribution of the constantly repeated quavers in the original is "no substitute for the lost rhetoric of the strings." Second movement. The dense chordal writing in the three introductory bars of the ''Grave'' is unusual and departs from Vivaldi's specification of "Adagio e spiccato". Bach adapted the fugue to the organ as follows: the pedal does not play the bass line of the original allegro but has an accompanying role, rather than being a separate voice in the fugue; the writing does not distinguish between soloists and ripieno; parts are frequently redistributed; and extra semiquaver figures are introduced, particularly over the prolonged
pedal point In music, a pedal point (also pedal note, organ point, pedal tone, or pedal) is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign (i.e. dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes function ...
concluding the piece. The resulting fugue is smoother than the original, which is distinguished by its clearly delineated sections. remarks that the way Vivaldi inverts the fugue subject must have appealed to Bach. Third movement. The scoring for organ in the
ritornello A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century madrigal, which were usu ...
and solo episodes of this movement—a form of
Siciliano The siciliana or siciliano (also known as the sicilienne or the ciciliano) is a musical style or genre often included as a movement within larger pieces of music starting in the Baroque period. It is in a slow or time with lilting rhythms, ...
—is unusual in Bach's writing for organ. The widely spaced chords that accompany the solo melody in the original are replaced by simple chords in the left hand. For Griepenkerl, the sweetness of the melody reflected the tender personality of Wilhelm Friedemann. Fourth movement. The last movement of Op.3, No.11 is composed in ritornello ''A''–''B''–''A'' form. In the opening bars the first and second violins play in ''tutti'' the opening theme with its repeated quavers and clashing dissonances. Bach used the same theme for the opening chorus of his cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, first performed on 17 June 1714, shortly before ill health forced Prince Johann Ernst to leave Weimar for treatment in
Bad Schwalbach Bad Schwalbach (called Langenschwalbach until 1927) is the district seat of Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. Geography Geographic location Bad Schwalbach is a spa town some 20 km northwest of Wiesbaden. It lies at 289 to 465&nbs ...
. Although each return of the theme with its chromatic falling bass accompaniment is instantly recognizable, Bach's allotting of parts between the two manuals (''Oberwerk'' and ''Rückpositiv'') can occasionally obscure Vivaldi's sharp distinction between solo and ripieno players. Various elements of Vivaldi's string writing, that would normally be outside Bach's musical vocabulary for organ compositions, are included directly or with slight adaptations in Bach's arrangement. As well as the dissonant suspensions in the opening quaver figures, these include quaver figures in parallel thirds, descending
chromatic fourth In music theory, a chromatic fourth, or ''passus duriusculus'',Monelle, Raymond (2000). ''The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays'', p.73. . is a melody or melodic fragment spanning a perfect fourth with all or almost all chromatic intervals fill ...
s, and rippling semidemiquavers and semiquavers in the left hand as an equivalent for the
tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single Musical note, note, particularly used on String instrument#Bowing, bowed string instrument ...
string accompaniment. Towards the end of the piece, Bach fills out the accompaniment in the final virtuosic semiquaver solo episode by adding imitative quaver figures in the lower parts. compares the dramatic ending—with its chromatic fourths descending in the pedal part—to that of the keyboard Sinfonia in D minor, BWV 779.


Concerto in E-flat major, BWV 597

Probably neither composed nor transcribed by Bach, and rather a trio sonata, by a composer of a later generation, than a concerto.Work at Bach Digital website Movements: # ithout tempo indication# Gigue


Table


Discography


BWV 592–597

*
Hans Fagius Hans Gustav Fagius, né Andersson (born 10 April 1951), is a Swedish classical organist and pedagogue. Biography Fagius was born in Norrköping and studied organ with Bengt Berg before entering the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, where he studie ...
(2000). ''Bach Edition'', Boxes 6 (CDs 41 and 45) and 22 (CDs 151–153 and 155). Recorded 1985–1986 and 1988–1989. Brilliant Classics 99365/3, /7; 99381/4, /5, /6, /8. * Karl Richter (1974). Die Orgelkonzerte, Archiv Production 431119-2 digitally remastered from Polydor International.


Orchestral organ concertos

*
André Isoir André Jean-Marie Isoir (20 July 1935 – 20 July 2016) was a French organist and pedagogue. Biography André Isoir was born in 1935 in Saint-Dizier in Grand Est, France. Isoir studied with Édouard Souberbielle (organ) and Germaine Mounier (p ...
and conducted by Martin Gester (1993). ''L'Å“uvre pour orgue et orchestre''. Includes BWV 29/1 and reconstructions BWV 1052a, 1053a and 1059a. Calliope CAL 9720. *
Bart Jacobs Bart is a masculine given name, usually a diminutive of Bartholomew, sometimes of Barton, Bartolomeo, etc. Bart is a Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish surname, and derives from the name ''Bartholomäus'', a German form of the biblical name ''Barth ...
and Les Muffatti (2019). ''Concertos for Organ and Strings''. Includes Concerto in D major after BWV 169 and BWV 49, Concerto in D minor after BWV 146, BDW 188 and BWV 1052, Sinfonia in G major after BWV 156, Sinfonia in F major after BWV 75, Sinfonia in D major after BWV 29 and BWV 120a, Concerto in D moner after BWV 35 and BWV 1055, Concerto in G minor after BWV 1041 and BWV 1058.
Ramée Outhere Music is a Belgian classical music and jazz publisher, directed by Charles Adriaenssen, which owns several formerly independent labels, many of them boutique early music specialists: * Fuga Libera, a Belgian label founded in 2004 under th ...
(Outhere Music) RAM 1804.


References


Sources


Introduction
(in German and English) â€
Commentary
(English translation—commentary in paperback original is in German) * * * * * *


External links

* At
IMSLP The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki software ...
website: **BWV 592 and BWV 592a: Violin Concerto in G major (Johann Ernst Prinz von Sachsen-Weimar) ** Organ Concerto in A minor, BWV 593 (Bach, Johann Sebastian) and Concerto for 2 Violins in A minor, RV 522 (Vivaldi, Antonio) ** Organ Concerto in C major, BWV 594 (Bach, Johann Sebastian) ** Organ Concerto in C major, BWV 595 (Bach, Johann Sebastian) and Violin Concerto in C major (Johann Ernst Prinz von Sachsen-Weimar) ** Organ Concerto in D minor, BWV 596 (Bach, Johann Sebastian) and Concerto in D minor, RV 565 (Vivaldi, Antonio) ** Organ Concerto in E-flat major, BWV 597 (Bach, Johann Sebastian) * Pages at
James Kibbie James Kibbie (born March 13, 1949) is an American concert organist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan. Biography Kibbie was born in 1949 in Vinton, Iowa, USA. He graduated from Davenport We ...
'
Bach Organ Works
website containing free downloads of recordings on various 18th-century organs in
AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...
and MP3 format
BWV 592
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BWV 593
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BWV 594
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BWV 595
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BWV 596
{{Authority control Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach