The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge Companions to Music) by John Butt (ed)

Author:John Butt (ed)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1997-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

The Weimar concerto transcriptions

Unlike the first group of works discussed in the present article, the second group can be dated with some accuracy and assigned to a particular period in Bach’s life. These are his transcriptions of solo concertos by Italian composers or by German composers working under Italian influence. They were undertaken midway through his Weimar period or, to be more precise, in 1713–14. 13

Among the various types of composition from the European musical tradition on which Bach drew, the Italian solo concerto was the most recent. Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar (1696–1715) clearly played an important role in bringing these works to Bach’s attention: he undertook a study trip to the Netherlands (principally Utrecht) between 1711 and 1713 and, in the course of his visit, bought up vast quantities of scores for the Weimar court orchestra (Amsterdam was at that time one of the leading centres of music publishing in Europe). Among the works he brought back to Weimar were Antonio Vivaldi’s twelve Op. 3 concertos published in Amsterdam around 1712 under the title L’estro armonico . Prince Johann Ernst had clearly developed a particular enthusiasm for the Italian concerto, an enthusiasm which led to a positive burgeoning of the genre at the Weimar court between his return from the Netherlands in July 1713 and his renewed departure a year later. 14 The prince himself contributed to the orchestra’s repertory with a number of works of his own, and Bach, in his capacity as court organist, was required to perform keyboard transcriptions of concertos.

Of the large number of transcriptions – five for organ (BWV 592–6) and sixteen for harpsichord (BWV 972–87), 15 it will be sufficient to cite a mere handful to illustrate Bach’s creative approach to his sources. The opening ritornello of the first movement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D major RV 208 16 (described in one manuscript as Il grosso Mogul 17 ) contains an arpeggiated motif that is passed to and fro, imitatively, between first violins and basses. A direct transcription for organ would have produced Example 10.2 . Bach’s version of this passage is guided by a desire to retain for as long as possible the continuous semiquaver movement built up in the previous section and to provide an independent line for the player’s left hand. Both these aims are achieved by the addition of a semiquaver figuration in the middle register, resulting in the version given in Example 10.3 .

Example 10.2 Vivaldi, Violin Concerto in D major RV 208, first movement: literal transcription for organ

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