Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1741)
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major BWV 1067

This is one of the six concertos dedicated to Margrave Christian Ludwig Brandenburg-Anspach. Most probably, the collection was made up of concertos written previously for the court ensemble in Köthen, where Bach began to serve as Kappelmeister in 1717.
Brandenburg Concertos, different from one another in terms of instrumentation, form, and style, are bound together by the ever-present idea of concerted music. They can be treated as a master’s catalogue, where the composer presents side by side various types of concert play, from the old Venetian polychoral through concerto grosso to the virtuoso solo concerto.
From the point of view of tone and structure, Fifth Concerto is the most modern work of the cycle. Ostensibly, it preserves the concerto grosso form in its confrontation of the orchestra’s tutti with the concertino, a solo group of instruments, yet at the same time it clearly exhibits features of the soloist concerto. Of the concertino group made up of the transverse flute, the violin and the harpsichord, it is the latter instrument that is especially highlighted. Apart from its traditional role – to fill and emphasize harmony – it engages in virtuoso play in rapid octave runs and in the solo 65-bar cadence that closes the first movement. This novel treatment of the harpsichord part has paved the way for the emergence of the solo harpsichord concerto.
The form of the work assumes the tripartite model of the Italian concerto appropriated from Vivaldi. The influence of aria da capo is discernible in the fast movements; the material of the theme returns in the original key, which is the novel element.
∙ Movement One (Allegro) begins with a theme in the orchestra; its rhetoric is at once solemn and joyful. Then the concertino group joins in with its own and more song-like thematic material. The musical narration relies on the rivalry between the orchestra and the soloists, who exchange their thematic motives and develop them independently. Only once, in the movement’s middle section, do the two groups come together to intone new and contrasting musical material of subdued expression. Towards the end of the movement, the harpsichord gradually assumes the primary role in the concertino, which quite naturally leads to its solo cadence. The orchestra’s initial theme closes this part of the concerto.
∙ The melancholy Movement Two (Affettuoso) is entrusted exclusively to the three solo instruments. They develop singing motives basing on rich counterpoint work.
∙ Movement Three (Allegro) is written in fugato technique; as a result, the concert of the tutti and the concertino goes on in the same thematic material. The solo instruments present a merry and dancing theme, saturated with the rhythm of a gigue. Just as in the first movement, a fragment with contrasting expression appears with a cantabile melody derived from the initial theme.

Ewa Siemdaj