Sunday Classics: "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1

The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra gives a now-fashionably lickety-split but still quite nice performance of the final movement (Menuetto and Polacca) of Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto. Listen particularly for the second Trio -- not the first Trio, of the Menuetto, written for, literally, a trio of two oboes and bassoon, at 1:12, but the second Trio, of the Polacca (which begins at 3:14), written for a "trio" of two horns plus a trio of oboes, at 5:17.

by Ken

I expect you're thinking, haven't we had enough music this week with our Christmas specials, Handel's Messiah for Christmas Eve and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ for Christmas Day? Obviously, you already have my answer.

One pleasant tradition that's developed around the holidays is performing the entire set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos. In a sense it's easier now that we think of the concertos as chamber rather than orchestral music, but it really tests the mettle of the presenting chamber music group. The six concertos are so different, and scored for such different instrumental combinations, that just figuring out who's to play what and then managing the logistics of having the correct players available, first for rehearsal (today's musicians racing from job to job to keep their heads above water can hardly be asked to sit through rehearsals in which they have nothing to do, but at the same time you can't rehearse a concerto if you don't have all the necessary performers on hand) and then for onstage at the right time for the right pieces -- the logistics are exhaustive and exhausting, and for obvious reasons it's not easy to get all six pieces prepared to the degree of thoroughness that most of those musicians might wish.

Nevertheless, performing the complete set of Brandenburgs can be an exhilarating experience for both performers and audiences, and the holidays just seem like a natural time to undertake it. I thought that we might join in this particular celebration, only we're not going to do it in all-in-one fashion. We'll get through the first three concertos today, and then the remaining three (probably) next week.

In the only all-Bach post I've written to date, devoted to the unusually personal world of his arias, I wrote:

If I were setting out to "sell" Bach, or even to try to sketch the Bach who most matters to me, I would start with the secular music -- with, say, the Brandenburg Concertos and the solo-cello suites. But the cantatas may be the place where one comes closest to encountering the soul of Bach.

WE COME AT LAST TO THE BRANDENBURGS

Not quite for the first time, though. Shortly after, I wrote a post built about extraordinary surprises composers may bury in larger works, offering as examples the totally unexpected and totally wonderful methodically galloping rhythmic figure that breaks out suddenly in the cello then works its way up the string-quartet membership in the theme-and-variations slow movement of Mozart's String Quartet No. 18, and the tiny bit -- a mere minute in our performance -- known innocently enough as "Trio II" in the final movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.

Here's the bit we're talking about, in the best performance I've heard of it, or at any rate the one that really made me sit up and take notice. It still sounds awfully good to me. (Note: You can click to enlarge the score page, but you won't be able to hear the music at the same time. Sorry!)


CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, cond. CBC Records, recorded 1983
[I'm sorry not to be able to identify the soloists of this performance, but my copy of the CD booklet has gone missing!]


TO HEAR THE WHOLE BRANDENBURG NO. 1
(TWO WAYS!) AND NOS. 2 AND 3, CLICK HERE

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[12/26/2010] "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1 (continued)

The Freiburgers give a highly adrenalized performance of the dazzling opening movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto.


Before we proceed to the whole of the First Brandenburg, I thought we'd pause to listen one more time to the Menuet and Polacca. It's this last movement, by the way, that sets the First Concerto apart from the rest of this set of six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Concertos with several instruments) that Bach dedicated and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg, clearly with the thought of showing off what he could do. (You never knew what a prosperous man of evident good musical taste might wish to make of to make of "what Bach could do." As it is, just by dedicating these concertos to the Margrave, Bach immortalized him.) As the opening work in the set, No. 1 was "supersized" for "wow" effect with this (extra) fourth movement.

One thing to remember in listening to this movement is the Baroque era habit of repeating individual sections and for building structures in A-B-A fashion, which is to say establishing a musical statement, providing a contrasting section, and repeating the original section. This is how a "normal" minuet-and-trio was structured: minuet, trio, repeat of minuet (with all the individual sections repeated). Here Bach expands the idea by working in the polacca with its trio, meanwhile continuing to repeat the minuet section.

In this performance, conducted by the fine violinist Josef Suk (who plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we're not hearing [ah, breaking development: check the "bonus" section below!]), Trio II -- taken at a deliciously, tantalizingly held-back pace -- comes at 6:05.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046:
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Ivan Séquardt, Liběna Séquardtová, and Jiří Vodňanský, oboes; Rudolf Beránek and Zdeněk Pok, horns; Suk Chamber Orchestra, Josef Suk, cond. Vanguard, recorded November 1989


NOW WITH A MINIMUM OF FURTHER ADO LET'S
PROCEED TO OUR HALF-BRANDENBURG SET

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

For modern ears, trained to take their Baroque music quaintified into wisps of trivial nothingness, the Casals Brandenburgs probably sound stodgy and heavy-handed. But then, those modern tastes have no use for musical breadth and depth, wisdom and joy and reflection.

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio; iii. Allegro
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

John Mack, Ronald Richards, and Peter Christ, oboes; Myron Bloom and Robert Johnson, horns; Donald MacCourt, bassoon; Alexander Schneider, violin; Rudolf Serkin, piano; Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1964


Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047

If we had popularity ratings for the Brandenburgs, I expect that the Fifth would be a clear winner, and the Second would be runner-up. It's especially known for the heady high-trumpet part. There's so much sensational music packed in that I'm always startled to be reminded how short the piece actually is.

The Britten-conducted set of Brandenburgs, very different from the Casals, also seems to me one of the glories of recording history.

i. Allegro
ii. Andante
iii. Allegro assai

Richard Adeney, flute; Peter Graeme, oboe; David Mason, trumpet; Emanuel Hurwitz, violin; English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten, cond. Decca, recorded in The Maltings, Snape, December 1968

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048

One of life's great mysteries is why the Third Brandenburg has no middle movement, not even in the autograph manuscript, which has just two chords, marked "Adagio." All manner of theories have been advanced, and performance solutions attempted (often involving interpolation of a seemingly compatible Bach movement). It's possible that the composer intended some sort of keyboard improvisation here, or that he simply didn't intend there to be a "middle" movement.

I mentioned in connection with our hearing of Vivaldi that was crazy for Italian music generally (and Vivaldi in particular). I thought we might hear an Italian performance of this strings-only concerto -- written with three violin, viola, and cello parts in the first movement, but only violins and violas in the last, where the cellos are assigned to churn along with the continuo part.

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio (two embellished chords); iii.Allegro

I Musici. Philips, recorded c1964


BONUS: A MORE "AUTHENTIC" FIRST BRANDENBURG

I don't think there's a "right" answer to the question of "authenticity" in Baroque performance. I do feel pretty strongly, though, that the notion that "more authentic," in terms of instruments and performance practices, automatically means "musically superior" is far more ridiculously untrue than any of its proponents imagine -- but then, these are people who tend not to be start with a great deal of imagination. That said, I think it's certainly valuable, especially in music of this inexhaustible richness, to hear a variety of approaches.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio
iii. Allegro
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Boston Baroque, Martin Pearlman, dir. Telarc, recorded Jan. 3-5, 1994


WELL, MAYBE ONE LAST FIRST BRANDENBURG

Okay, well, maybe one more performance of the First Brandenburg. I tantalized you above by pointing out that conductor Josef Suk plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we didn't hear, so I thought it would be only fair to let you hear the whole concerto.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

i. Allegro; ii. Adagio; iii. Allegro; iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Ivan Séquardt, Liběna Séquardtová, and Jiří Vodňanský, oboes; Rudolf Beránek and Zdeněk Pok, horns; Suk Chamber Orchestra, Josef Suk, violin and cond. Vanguard, recorded November 1989


NEXT WEEK (PROBABLY) IN SUNDAY CLASSICS

We'll get there eventually, if not next week. Obviously we need to cover the remaining three Brandenburg Concertos, and I'm thinking that at that time perhaps it would be interesting to dip into the world of still-older-style Bach performance.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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