BACH BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS - buywell.com · 2 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 1685-1750 CD1 Brandenburg...

ORCHESTRA OF THE ANTIPODES | ANTONY WALKER

BACH BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 1685-1750

CD1

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV1046 [19’27]

1 I. [Allegro] 3’51

2 II. Adagio 3’41

3 III. Allegro 4’15

4 IV. Menuet – Polonaise – Menuet 7’33

Antony Walker director

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV1047 [11’27]


6 II. Andante 3’42

7 III. Allegro assai 2’42


Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BVW1048 [10’19]


9 II. Adagio 0’20


Anna McDonald director

! Cantata BWV29 ‘Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir’ – Sinfonia (Presto) 3’29


@ Cantata BWV156 ‘Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe’ – Sinfonia 2’16

Neal Peres Da Costa director

£ Cantata BWV75 ‘Die Elenden sollen essen’ – Sinfonia 2’31


$ Cantata BWV42 ‘Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats’ – Sinfonia 6’44


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CD2

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV1049 [14’48]

1 I. Allegro 6’49

2 II. Andante 3’19

3 III. Presto 4’34

Anna McDonald director

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV1050 [20’00]

4 I. Allegro 9’25

5 II. Affettuoso 5’21


Erin Helyard director

Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, BWV1051 [16’27]


8 II. Adagio ma non tanto 4’30


Erin Helyard director

0 Cantata BWV174 ‘Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte’ – Sinfonia 5’35


! Cantata BWV21 ‘Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis’ – Sinfonia (Adagio assai) 2’56


@ Cantata BWV106 ‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’ (Actus Tragicus) – Sonatina 2’17

(Molto adagio)


£ Cantata BWV182 ‘Himmelskönig, sei willkommen’ – Sonata (Grave. Adagio) 2’07


Orchestra of the Antipodes

on period instruments

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Bach, Cultural Commentary and the New Concerto

It is hard to imagine that anything familiar was once new, but this is precisely how Northerners viewedthe Italian concerto. Like many cultural exports, it was at first observed with suspicion, then copied, atfirst hesitatingly but then with increasing confidence, before being finally assimilated, its inherentformal elegance energetically admired. By the end of the 17th century, the French-styled dance suitesand the older Italianate sonata forms were starting to sound a little stale in the ears of a youngergeneration; there was a novel conversational element, a new kind of dynamic energy, that seemed toshine through in the new music that was slowly disseminating, in precious scribed copies, over theAlps. Later, thriving northern cities such as Amsterdam and Hamburg became important centres for thedistribution of beautifully engraved publications.

In Italy, the popularity of the solo violin was concurrent with the rise of opera, and the architectural ideaof pitting one single line against a larger autonomous ‘other’ began to define a new sense of style.What was so novel for a contemporary spectator was the visual and aural impact of seeing anindividual, or a group of individuals, engaging ‘in contest’ or ‘in consort’ with a larger body. On theoratorical level it was clearly understood that this individual was sometimes participating with the largerbody, sometimes arguing, or violently disagreeing, or placidly agreeing, or seducing, or lamenting.

Placing the concerto syntax in the then contemporary received tradition of the art of oratory helps usunderstand the opposing (and seemingly contradictory) etymological explanations for the word‘concerto’. For Johann Mattheson, in 1713, the twin derivations of the word (conserere – to consort;and concertare – to compete) outlined the dramatic concerns of the genre itself, for they were‘composed in such a way that each part in turn comes into prominence and vies, as it were, with theother parts.’ For the first time, and on a deliberately large scale, no pre-written text supplied thecomposer or performer with a dramatic outline. It was an extraordinary conceit. Some listeners neverquite understood it, like Fontenelle with his famous question ‘Sonate, que me veux-tu?’ (Sonata, whatdo you want of me?) Some composers could not altogether give up external literary models, like Tartini,who prefaced his concerto movements with sonnets.

Bach’s first encounters with this new music, and with the concertos of Vivaldi in particular, took place in1713. Bach was at that time in the employ of the Duke of Weimar; the Duke’s nephew, Prince Johannwas an immensely talented musician who played the violin and was a diligent composition pupil ofBach’s kinsman J.G. Walther. The young prince, who had just returned from university studies in

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Utrecht, was a passionate admirer of the new Italian style, and had evidently spent some of his timeabroad perusing the stock shelves of the renowned Amsterdam publishing house Roger, for he broughtback with him a varied collection of the best of the Venetian masters, including a newly published opusof Antonio Vivaldi – L’estro armonico. One of Bach’s duties at Weimar was to transcribe a selection ofthese concertos for solo harpsichord.

How did Bach respond to this new music? The transcriptions themselves at times greatly embellish theoriginals, Bach clearly parading himself before the prince as the virtuoso keyboardist, thoroughly incontrol of any material the young gentleman might care to throw his way. The craftsman in him seemsto have been impressed by the economical architectural structure of the new so-called ritornello form,for he immediately began some of his own first essays in the form. He must have discerned a greatdeal of practical potential in the thoroughly idiomatic Venetian writing for the stringed instruments, andcertainly he saluted the new rhythmic possibilities offered by a tight-knit motivic development andasymmetrical phrasing. But the rising arch of increasing or decreasing textures and/or rhythmic overlaysthat would soon be further coloured by dramatic crescendi and diminuendi, easily discerned in Vivaldi,is almost entirely lacking in Bach’s works, though not so in the compositions of other German musicilike Telemann or Pisendel. So too is the new, nourishing pleasure that Europe was to embrace –natural, pleasing and transparent melody, unburdened by excessive counterpoint, a quality coaxed fromthe lyrical innovations of Catholic opera houses.

That Bach could imitate any one of these different facets of the new style is undeniable – witness the slowmovement of the Double Violin Concerto, certain pastoral-tinted sacred cantatas as well as the secularones, and the glorious multi-faceted landscape of the cantata sinfonias, also sampled in this recording. Thathe seemed impartial in pursuing these essentially galant innovations was first commented upon by theSwedish academician Johann Adolph Scheibe, whose famous published letter of 1737 came at a timewhen the aesthetic exports of the Italians had firmly conquered and consolidated a once fragmentedmusical landscape:

This great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he had more amenity [Annehmlichkeit], ifhe did not take away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a turgid [schwülstig] andconfused style, and if he did not darken their beauty by an excess of art.

Bach seemed to have responded to Vivaldi in such a thoroughly personal fashion that he stands apart,and somewhat aloof, from his colleagues. He was not content to simply clad his ideas ‘in an Italiancoat,’ as Telemann was to say in 1740, describing his own reaction to the concerto phenomenon.

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Determined to wed the older, soon to be called ‘learned’ or ‘antique’ style with newer galant forms,Bach in fact ‘reintroduce[d] the very kind of complexity that the Italian concerto style had presumablybeen admired for avoiding,’ as Michael Marissen notes in his brilliant study of the BrandenburgConcertos1. The compositional sketches of galant composers training in the art (and here we canexamine the odds-and-ends, scrap manuscript paper really, of the workshops of the Neapolitanconservatories) did not concern themselves with counterpoint, but rather with niceties of asymmetricalphrasing, of a pleasing melodic contour, of adroit control of cadential patterns – in short, an overallconcern with rhythmic timing, patterning, layering and the subtle linking together of short essential cantabile elements.

In Bach’s music, as Scheibe noted in annoyance, all the parts ‘must operate with each other and be ofequal difficulty and none of them can be recognised as the principal voice.’ Even Christoph LorenzMizler, the writer and theorist who leapt to Bach’s defence in 1738, observed that ‘Herr Bach at timeswrites the inner lines more fully than other composers,’ his model being ‘the music of twenty ortwenty-five years ago’. When Bach transcribed the Italian concertos for the young prince, hesophisticated and complicated the originals, busying bass lines, filling out inner parts. He was neverquite comfortable with the spontaneous and transparent style, with its weightless spinning sequencesand natural melody. Bach’s ruggedly individual reaction to the new trends defines both hisdetermination of character and his extraordinary striving for compositional sophistication – even if, attimes, this sophistication was deemed not quite in fashion.

There are some significant works by Bach that could be seen to encapsulate his efforts in reconcilingdiffering influences and define his stance in regards to the encroaching galant style. One thatarticulates his historical position as guardian of a pure style is the dramatic cantata The Strife betweenPhoebus and Pan (c. 1732). In this work, musicologist Robert Gutman sees Bach confronting ‘the factof Baroque art in dissolution and [taking] an unequivocal – indeed, combative – position.’ Phoebus(Apollo) defeats Pan in a singing contest presided over by the pleasure-loving Phrygian KingMidas.Midas decides in favour of Pan: ‘You alone…sang lightly and without affectation,’ he cries out inadulation, and for this outrage Apollo bestows ass’s ears upon him. The Muses, usurping the king’sposition as judge, ultimately place the victor’s laurels on Apollo, who thereafter retains his uncontestedcelestial title as god of song and music.

1 The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995

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It is clear from his ingenious manipulation of musical styles that Bach identified Pan with the newgalant trends and Phoebus with himself. This satirical bent is further emphasised in his Coffee Cantataof the same period: dreamy rococo triplets for flute and pizzicati and a sensuous siciliana withfashionable cello embellishments for the coffee-addled Liesgen (‘Lizzie’), self-consciously caught up inher addition to the dangerous new drug, and a faux opera seria ‘rage’ aria and an old-fashioned stodgycontinuo piece for her furious father, determined to put a stop to the coffee depravity.

Many Protestants also viewed the galant style as a dangerous drug, that needed to be regulated andcontrolled every bit as firmly as coffee; this is clear in the sentiments of the city fathers of Leipzig, who commanded that the music of their new Cantor, Bach, be not ‘too theatrical’. The elder Fux waspresumably thinking in these terms too when he described in disgust the deplorable ‘insanity ofmodern music’. Like coffee, the new galant style was seen to affect people in strange, inexplicable andworrying ways. Shocked observers witnessed the mass emotional reactions of whole groups of opera-goers convulsed with laughter, or wracked with sobs – bourgeois and aristocracy alike. The newcrescendo involuntarily caused spectators to depart from polite protocol and ‘gradually rise from [their]seats; not until the following diminuendo did they realise that they had almost ceased to breathe.’ By the mid century, this cultural export of the Italians had become as fashionable, and as desired, ascoffee. And like coffee, it was soon accepted and assimilated without debate.

Another of Bach’s works in which the composer sets opposing stylistic influences into play, and revealsan inherent interest in subtle kinds of social interpretations, are the so-called Brandenburg Concertos.The circumstances of their commission are well known. In the autumn of 1718, Bach travelled to Berlinto supervise the purchase of a new Michael Mietke harpsichord for the Cöthen court, where he hadoccupied the positions of Capellmeister and Director of Music of the Chamber since August 1717.Presumably Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg heard him play and expressed a desire forsome instrumental concertos. (The margrave’s love of music led him to establish an impressive library:at his death the inventory of his collection reveals operas by Handel, Francesco Conti and GiuseppeMaria Orlandini, and concertos by Albinoni, Brescianello, Locatelli, Valentini, Tommaso de Mauro andVivaldi – all Italians.)

Two years passed before the hastily prepared but calligraphically beautiful set of six was dispatched tothe Margrave’s residences at the Berlin Schloss. (Did Bach not take the commission seriously, or didhis court commitments preclude time for this kind of composition?) Titled Six Concerts Avec plusieursInstruments, they were dedicated by Bach at Cöthen on 24 March 1721; he signs off as ‘Son tres-humble & tres obeissant serviteur, Jean Sebastien Bach’.

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Ever since their rediscovery by the German scholar Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849 they have beenhailed as works of transcendent genius, and, despite their difficulty and demanding orchestration, theyare among Bach’s most performed works to this day. Only eight years had passed since his firstexposure to ritornello form and the new structures of concerti grossi, and Bach immediatelydemonstrates his control of the potentials of form, material and content. He transforms and transcendsaspects of the Italian styles with unparalleled skill and sophistication, welding differing elementstogether with a formidable contrapuntal vigour and imaginative orchestration.

The somewhat unusual orchestration reads as a roll-call of the typical early 18th-century court orchestra– trumpet, violin, oboes, bassoon, hunting horns, recorder, harpsichord, viola da gamba, viola da braccioand violoncello. It was previously thought that the set was conceived as a fairly ad hoc collection, withBach hurriedly choosing disparate concertos from his library at Cöthen in order to fulfil an overduecommission. But as Michael Marissen has demonstrated in his pioneering study, there is every reasonto suppose that the set of six represents a conscious reaction to the new ritornello form as well as toVivaldi’s L’estro armonico itself.

Although never performed as a set – in the 18th century, these kinds of collections were hardly everplayed through in one sitting – Bach sets out to unify the different concertos under the umbrella oforchestration. The First and Sixth Concertos are ensemble concertos, the Second and Fifth are concertigrossi and the Third and Fourth Concertos combine elements of the two at the centre. The keys Bachchooses are all in the major mode (F, G, D, B-flat) and extend out from C major with one and then twoflats and sharps. Interestingly, Marissen suggests that ‘in some broad sense Bach’s BrandenburgConcertos appear to complete Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico,’ as the Brandenburg Concertos are associatedwith the soft hexachord, and the key pitches of Vivaldi’s collection are associated with the hard and naturalhexachords. Combining the two works gives us the complete gamut of available keys – a convenientimage of musical totality not lost on the likes of Bach. Marissen also sees in the concertos an intriguingkind of social commentary, as Bach employs and experiments with the instruments of the court orchestrain highly unusual and unexpected ways, subverting the expectations of 18th-century listeners andchallenging their previously-held notions about the accepted musical hierarchy.

Concerto No. 1 in F major

The expected rhythmic clarity of the opening ritornello is in fact smeared by the intrusive three-against-four rhythmic rudeness of the horns – outdoor, hunting instruments made of incorrigible brass,brusquely competing with a suave company of gut-strung violins and wooden oboes – inhabitants of the

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inner sanctums of the court. But is it more than this? In the concertare of the concerto rhetoric, clearlythe dominant (and aurally almost overpowering) force is the outdoor hunt and not that of the court – apowerful image not lost on any young prince listener who might have pined for the rigorous exercise ofa hunt through the open countryside, something aside from the cloying attitudes to which one feltobliged during disaffected moments at court. And in his (c)rude rhythmic juxtaposition Bach also seemsto immediately reject, and rather boldly, the smooth parallelism, mirror-effect phrasing and overt lyricismof the latest Venetian trends – that whisper of the opera house, those ‘pretty tunes’ of Catholic courtslike Dresden, as Bach once noted, sarcastically, in his Phoebus role. Is Bach at once acknowledging thenew Italian structural form whilst simultaneously refuting its new transparent clarity?

If the Margrave ever heard this work, he would have immediately recognised the opening salutes ofthe horns as a Saxon hunting call. If he was at all inclined to the hunt (and it is highly probable that hewas) he may have permitted himself a smile, for Bach was immediately signalling his recognition of thisroyal personage’s high, worldly status. At the beginning of the 18th century, the presence of huntinghorns in the chamber was a rare event, and so to some onlookers it may have seemed rather vulgar,having outdoor instruments inside.

In this work there are three discrete groups of musicians engaging in the framework of the concertodialogue. First we see and hear the hunting horns, musicians who would have enjoyed a very highstatus at court, young men who could ride a horse at full gallop and still sound the differing calls thatsignalled the stages of the hunt, on an instrument whose worth could have kept a peasant family fedfor a year. Second, there are the ripieno string players, a group of musicians who would have enjoyed aslightly lower status – they were also called upon to play other instruments such as the oboe, flute orbassoon. Their leader, one of the better-paid Cammermusiker, enjoyed a very high status in the musicalhierarchy, a position shared with the Capellmeister (who would have been present at the harpsichord),but in this concerto Bach directs him to play a rather unusual instrument – the violino piccolo, a child-sized instrument. Tuned a minor third higher than usual, it was associated both with children and,according to an account of Telemann’s, with Polish tavern music. (The part is however still playable on astandard instrument, as is used on this recording.) The final group of musicians, the oboes andbassoon, were often taken from military bands or, at least in northern Europe, from the Stadtpfeifer(municipal musicians). They would have occupied the lowest rung of the musical hierarchy, and wereoften only brought in for special musical events requiring large forces.

From the outset Bach, in an ingenious manipulation of the Vivaldian ritornello form, brings into play allof these hierarchical expectations and then turns them upside down. He affirms the hornists’ status

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immediately with the jarring hunting call, but then they are subsumed into the general texture and,becoming less ‘horn-like’ with an increasing use of difficult stopped notes, attempt to imitate theoboes. The oboes have more prominent soloistic material than that of the lead violinist, forced to playon a child’s violin and whose part, labelled grandly by Bach as concertato, is anything but, barely risingout of the general texture.

In the third movement, the violin’s one attempt at a solo cadenza is rudely interrupted by the rest of theorchestra. In a final blow, the instrument is prevented from participating in the Trios of the final dancemovements – even the Polonaise, a dance one might imagine to be eminently suited to a Polishinstrument, is denied it!

In our recording, we have decided to alternate the orchestration of the repeating Menuet in the Frenchmanner, attempting to further highlight the tonal and social disparity already underlined by Bachhimself. Standing alongside this interpretation, however, is the undeniable inherent brilliance of theglorious scoring and formal manipulation of the new forms: the buoyant finale reads as a text-bookVivaldian ritornello, so quickly did Bach absorb the Venetian’s innovation. The Polonaise and two Triosgracefully acknowledge each group of instrumentalists whilst dancing around the canonic Menuet itself(oboes in a graceful French triplet, horns in a breathless depiction of the excitement of the hunt, andthe strings in their aristocratic Polonaise; by turns poised and forthright). Bach holds up many mirrors inthis final part of the work, inviting the musicians to witness each other going through their paces,almost as if the splendour of the court was their background, rather than the other way around.


Four representative members of the fundamental families of musical instruments step to the fore in thisconcerto. The equally structured parts for oboe, violin, recorder and trumpet (reed, string, woodwind,brass) seem to suggest Bach improvising with different stops on the new organs he was regularly askedto test and examine. Painted on top of a self-absorbed circular figure in the continuo, each musicianpresents his credentials to the Margrave: first the violin, followed by the oboe, the recorder andclimaxing with the trumpet, an instrument traditionally associated with military might and imperialsplendour. There is, however, no struggle for musical dominance in any of the three movements. (Thetrumpeter rests in the slow movement, where the aesthetic of that instrument is not required.)

Remarking that the ripieno parts could easily be dispensed with if needed (following contemporaryItalian practice), Marissen comments that ‘the relatively uncharged relationship between the (equal)soloists and the (dispensable) ripieno is all the more remarkable when we consider that the four

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soloists might, at the time the Brandenburg Concertos were compiled, readily have been associatedwith the Stadtpfeifer, the municipal musicians’ organization that was constantly envious of courtlymusical establishments, a group that required apprentices to pass an examination in brass, woodwind,reed, string playing. The concerto appears upon close historical consideration to be rather uncourtly insome respects.’

However uncourtly the instrumentation might have appeared to the Margrave, the musical materialwas courtly enough, as it is thoroughly in the Italian style he favoured. Bach concocts large sweeps ofarching melodic phrases out of energetic smaller rhythmic motifs, a feature of the outer movements.The delicious colloquy between flute, oboe and recorder in the middle movement, all above a statelywalking bass, delineates the new conversational essence of the times.

Concerto No. 3 in G major

This remarkable concerto puts on display the flexible expressive qualities of a courtly string band withthe Capellmeister at the harpsichord: three violins, three violas, three violoncellos and continuo(harpsichord and violone). Its two movements are separated by a simple Phrygian cadence markedAdagio that seems to invite improvisation from one of the musicians in charge of these kinds ofimportant transitions, such as the first violinist, or the harpsichordist. Bach is clearly outlining, as he did in the Second Concerto, the potentials of the conserere, or consort-like, element of the concerto paradigm.

Unified by instrumentation as well as leadership, the string band engages in a rigorous oratory newlypermitted, in fact encouraged, by the use of the ritornello structure. Musical material develops in muchthe same way as a speech might, the argument made all the more cohesive and comprehensible bythe persuasive use of returning material (the word ritornello itself means ‘a little return’). Bach eschewscounterpoint as a binding agent more and more in the episodes following the ritornelli, and smallerrhythmic cells create an individualistic textured background that immediately strikes one as Venetian.Overall the effect is lighter, more transparent; visual effects combine artfully with aural ones whenopposing groups of instruments echo each other, the use of the bow highlighting the effect. It is, ineffect, Bach’s vigorous salute to those parts of the new galant style that he was most ready to adopt.


The Fourth Concerto is scored for ‘Violino Principale. due Fiauti d’Echo. due Violini, una Viola è Violonein Ripieno, Violoncello è Continuo’. Much debate has arisen over the exact nature of the ‘fiauti d’echo’

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specified; at one time it was thought to refer to flageolets or a similar instrument that was muted, butit now seems clear he is referring to the function of the instruments: ‘flutes of the echo’ and not ‘echoflutes’. The nostalgic middle movement, with its evocation of the sarabande, is comprised of delicateecho exchanges between recorders and violin.

The first movement is certainly of the concertare type, the duo of humble recorders competing withthe lead Cammermusiker himself, the ‘Violino Principale’. Bach sometimes sidesteps the violin’sresponses – its expected replies and commentary are curtailed or denied outright – while the recordershappily partake in abundant material in ritornello and episode alike. This seems to provoke the famousangry outbreak from the violin in the first movement, and there is a parallel in the intensely virtuosiccomplaints of the closing fugue, a kind of final, insistent demand to be heard. The fugue itself seemsto be planned as an energetic attempt at homogeneity, with the competing elements finally distilled intheir contradictory and seemingly irreconcilable positions in the final dozen bars, where unexpectedpauses and unexpected chords are given out in unison by all the instrumentalists, as if to crystalliseand set at rest the argument.

Marissen sees here another example of Bach’s manipulations of the spectators’ expectations: ‘Byelevating the lowly fiauti d’echo (to frequent positions of primary status within both the concertino andthe ripieno) and by stealthily bringing down somewhat the supereminent violono prencipale (at best toprimus inter pares), Bach may be considered to have created in the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto anunparalleled structure representing musically the breach between appearance and essence familiar fromeveryday social and religious experience.’

Concerto No. 5 in D major

In the opening ritornello of any 18th-century performance of the Fifth Concerto, it would have appearedto the spectators that they were about to be party to the performance of a flute concerto, for the fluteplayer, flute held motionless, is appropriately silent, as was the custom. The flute is raised to the lipsfor the expected solo – and suddenly our observers are aware of another soloist – the lead violinist –who has been diligently leading the ensemble, along with the harpsichordist, in the ritornello. But whatis the harpsichordist doing? It seems as if the instrument is adding an unusually florid part to theensemble, decorating and embellishing with its colleagues even when its expected musical partners(the violoncello and violone) are silent.

If Bach had performed this piece at Cöthen, this kind of embellishment may not have appeared all thatsurprising to his accustomed audience – he was said to have improvised the continuo part ‘as if it had

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been composed beforehand’, and the surviving continuo realisations by himself and his students reveala preference for the full or vollstimmig style for which Italophile theorists like Mattheson demonstrateda preference. The Fifth Concerto shares the honour of being the first concerto explicitly written for theflute, as well as the first penned for the harpsichord.

Bach again plays with social status: both Susan McClary and Marissen see in this concerto a strugglein which the servile harpsichordist ‘hijacks’ the musical discourse, and in the final capriccio of the firstmovement, practically becomes the ensemble. As in the new Italian violin concertos, an emergingindividual dominates, demonstrating utter mastery of form and instrument in extended fantasies(whether extemporised or written down). In a violin concerto, all attention is drawn to the highly visualskill of the violinist, whose entire body faced the spectator, the expression clear in the player’scountenance. Whether or not Bach’s hands could have been seen in a performance is not certain (thereis some evidence to suggest that seeing the hands of a keyboardist was considered rather vulgar), buthe deliberately creates, as the Italian violinists did, a second audience – that of the orchestra itself,compelled to put down their instruments and observe the proceedings.

In contrast to the competitive first movement, the second is all conserere: it profiles the threeprotagonists in an elegant French-styled atmosphere of politesse, each deferring to the other in theirresponses, graciously bowing out of the way when another vies for a remark and then answering thesame with an agreeable civility. The final fugal movement features a dance-like motif that spans anoctave, suggesting a sense of framed closure. There are no more outbursts from the harpsichordist,and the da capo form closes a circle left open by a turbulent, often contrapuntal minor section.Balancing this is the earlier second theme: a gorgeous congenial melody of great warmth deliberatelymarked cantabile, a new galant indication.

Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major

Once thought to be an early work, this concerto, as Marissen and Malcolm Boyd have shown, is in facta sophisticated response to the formal challenges that Bach identified in Vivaldi. It is scored for a mostunusual, indeed a unique set of instruments: two violas, two violas da gamba, a cello and continuo.Bach effectively exalts the humblest member of the string family, the viola, to solo status, a positionnever before experienced, with technically demanding passages in the outer movements and artfulexpressive parts in the middle. He further de-emphasises the high status enjoyed at court by gambaplayers at the time by providing those players with often mundane, indeed ‘viola-like’, parts. If thisconcerto was played before Prince Leopold of Cöthen, he would have noticed the disparity

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immediately, for both he and his father were keen gamba players. (Marissen finds it ‘intriguing tospeculate that Bach’s often-mentioned pleasure in playing the viola for chamber ensembles was relatedperhaps not merely (or even primarily?) to an interest in being “in the middle of the harmony” but alsoto a ready willingness to being placed in the socially least desirable position in the ensemble.’)

Bach not only turns the musical hierarchy on its head; he mirrors the reversal in the architecture of thefirst movement and effectively inverts the Vivaldian ritornello form. The expected structure of the ritornellois in fact first heard in what we now call the episode, that part with the soloist(s) that immediately followsthe opening tutti. In the Sixth Concerto, Bach’s opening ritornello is a series of arpeggios on the violas,canonically presented at the space of one quaver, presenting us with a wash of gloriously mellow texturalcolour, but one without a definite sense of formal outline. When we reach the first ‘solo’ of the violas,however, the ‘episode’ actually follows the models an 18th-century connoisseur of the Italian concertowould have expected at the beginning, and not at the first solo. Bach’s insistent ‘drum-bass’ is anotherexample of his appropriation of certain features of the galant styles.

The second movement is an exquisite duo for the violas, their conversation framed by a richlysupportive violone and delicately placed cello line. The final movement of this concerto is joyous andplayful and resembles the sinfonia to the second part of the Christmas Oratorio.

AAlso included on this recording are some other examples of Bach’s instrumental art: a small samplingof the sinfonias to the church cantatas. Each is a gem in its own right, and Bach took pains in paintingthe appropriate exordium, or introduction, to each particular text. The earliest of those here includeddates from when the composer was 22: the 1707 Actus Tragicus (Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,

BWV106), possibly written for the funeral of his uncle, Tobias Lämmerhirt of Erfurt. The piece is scoredfor four voices, two recorders at low French pitch (often associated with funereal music), two violas da gamba and continuo; Bach employs the recorders in the opening movement (which he calls‘Sonatina’, in recognition of its homage to late 17th-century Italian forms) much as he would on theorgan, bringing them alternately to play in unison and then solo, in an infinitely touching echo, as if onanother, softer, manual.

BWV21 (Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis) and BWV182 (Himmelskönig, sei willkommen) were writtenin 1714 at Weimar and both demonstrate Bach’s compositional responses to the Italian concertos the

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young prince brought before him. BWV182 is sheer galant, an exquisite duo for recorder (again at Frenchpitch) and violin above a pizzicato string band; the opening phrase employs a neat galant harmonicprogression, very similar to the opening aria of the Goldberg Variations. The sinfonia to ‘Ich hatte vielBekümmernis’ mirrors the anguished tone of the following recitative and aria: ‘I had so much distressand woe within my bosom…sighing, crying, sorrow, need.’ Painful dissonances between solo oboe andviolin lacerate a string accompaniment harmonised in a Corellian manner above a walking bass.

In 1723, Bach made the journey to Leipzig, and after some test pieces, performed his ‘first music togood applause’. The music in question was the large-scale cantata Die Elenden sollen essen

(BWV75). Its Seconda parte opens with a sinfonia scored for solo tromba and strings – the trumpetintones the chorale tune over a splendidly busy double fugue. The sinfonia to the Easter cantata Am

Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats (BWV42) of 1725 has long been thought to be a movement of amissing concerto grosso – it is scored for two groups of soloists: two oboes and bassoon, and twoviolins and viola, the whole with continuo support. Set in a bright D major, this charming concerto-typemovement seems to depict the joy of Christ’s resurrection. The middle section before the da capofeatures further cantabile directions for the oboes, an indication encountered previously in the FifthBrandenburg Concerto.

Another galant sinfonia appears at the head of the 1729 cantata Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe

(BWV156). Perhaps better known today in its later 1742 arrangement as a keyboard concerto, theoriginal, and more lightly ornamented, version for oboe paints the somewhat grisly Lutheran text in softItalian pastels. For the sinfonia of Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (BWV174) of 1729,Bach turned to the first movement of the Third Brandenburg Concerto and added two hunting hornsand three oboes to the concertato parts, with splendid effect. Similarly Bach turned to an earlier work,the Prélude to the Third Violin Partita BWV1006, for the beginning of the 1731 civic cantata Wir danken

dir, Gott, wir danken dir (BWV29). Transposing the work down a major second, Bach transferred thePartita’s virtuosic violin part to himself at the organ and augmented the orchestration with the festiveaddition of three trumpets, kettledrums, oboes and strings. Written for a council election, the workbrings into relief both Bach the organist and Bach the Cantor and director of Collegii Musici (amateurmusic societies). These kinds of sinfonias demonstrate his love of orchestral colour, his deep andpassionate conviction to the ‘science of composition’, as it was termed at the time, and his readyexamination and masterly transformation of any new musical innovation that happened to pass his way.

Erin Helyard

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Erin Helyard

Erin Helyard graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with first-class honours and theUniversity Medal, and was additionally awarded the inaugural Lenore Buckle Scholarship for Music. InSydney, he studied harpsichord with Paul Dyer, Ray Harvey and Stephanie McCallum; he completed hisMasters degree in fortepiano performance with Tom Beghin at the Schulich School of Music, McGillUniversity, Montréal in 2005. Pursuing a passion for the music and culture of the 18th century and theideals of the Enlightenment, he has recently completed a PhD in musicology at the same institution.

Since arriving in Montréal in 2003, Erin Helyard has performed with the Theatre of Early Music, LesViolons du Roy, Autour de la Flûte, Notturna and Opéra de Montréal. He is a core member of theaward-winning Ensemble Caprice under the artistic directorship of Matthias Maute.

In partnership with Tom Beghin, he has performed with Ensemble Arion and, for the Flanders FestivalBruges, presented a musical play based on the 1781 competition between Mozart and Clementi. In2006 he conducted Les Violons du Roy in concerts featuring soprano Hélène Guilmette, and he isfeatured on Ensemble Caprice’s latest CD releases on the Analekta label. In 2009 Erin Helyardconducted Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for the Montréal Baroque Festival and Cavalli’s L’Ormindo forPinchgut Opera, of which he is Co-Artistic Director.

Erin Helyard was the Westfield Concert Scholar for 2009–2010, an initiative of the John ErnestFoundation. A highlight of his solo concert tour was an acclaimed recital on historical instruments fromthe collection of the Smithsonian Museum.

Anna McDonald

Anna McDonald has for many years been one of Australia’s foremost period-instrument violinists.

She obtained her degree from the Canberra School of Music under Charmian Gadd and subsequently,with support from the Australia Council and other scholarships, studied with David Takeno at theGuildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Towards the end of her study there, she developed an interest in period-instrument performance andbegan playing under John Eliot Gardiner, performing and recording late Mozart operas, the completeBeethoven symphonies, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and many other works. She was also a

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founding member of the Baroque ensemble Florilegium, with which she made recordings on ChannelClassics of Telemann, French chamber music and, with Pieter Wispelwey, the Haydn cello concertos.

Gaining wider experience, she played regularly with the English Concert, London Classical Players,King’s Consort and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She also performed and recorded as achamber musician with London Baroque and the Purcell Quartet.

She became leader of the Gabrieli Consort, Hanover Band and the Avison Ensemble, and playedregularly with these groups for a number of years. She has had an ongoing relationship with the GabrieliConsort, returning to Europe for many of their DG Archiv recordings, including JS Bach’s St MatthewPassion, Handel’s Theodora and Messiah, and Handel arias with Rolando Villazón. She has also featuredas soloist in several of the JC Bach concertos, recorded with the Hanover Band for CPO. AnnaMcDonald has also been concertmaster of the Basel Chamber Orchestra on numerous occasions.

Festival engagements in Australia have included appearances at the Barossa, Pearl Beach andCastlemaine Festivals, Canberra International Festival, and the New England Bach Festival. Co-founder,with Erin Helyard, of the Sirius Ensemble, she appears with them on an album of Veracini violinsonatas, released on the Artworks label (now ABC Classics); she has also performed with GeoffreyLancaster, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Ludovico’s Band and Concertino Copenhagen, and appeared asconcertmaster for Pinchgut Opera, Sinfonia Australis, Orchestra of the Antipodes and SydneyPhilharmonia Orchestra.

Neal Peres Da Costa

Neal Peres Da Costa is a performing scholar and music educator who specialises in historicallyinformed performance on early keyboard instruments. He has performed throughout the world with ahost of distinguished soloists and ensembles. His discography includes many award-winning albumswith Florilegium, the period-instrument ensemble he co-founded in 1992, as well as The BaroqueTrombone with Christian Lindberg and the Australian Chamber Orchestra (BIS), The Galant Bassoonwith Matthew Wilkie and Kees Boersma (Melba), nominated for an ABC Limelight Award, and mostrecently Baroque Duets (Vexations 840) with Fiona Campbell, David Walker and Ironwood, which hedirected. His recordings of the Bach Sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord with Richard Tognettiand Daniel Yeadon (2008 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album) and the Bach Sonatas for viola dagamba and obbligato harpsichord with Daniel Yeadon are available on ABC Classics.

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Neal Peres Da Costa is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of Early Music at the Sydney Conservatorium ofMusic. He has held lectureships at the University of New South Wales, the Royal Academy of Music andTrinity College in London, and was Artist in Residence at the University of Leeds. He has givenmasterclasses at historical performance courses in Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic, and mostrecently in NSW and Victoria with Ironwood. In 2010 he tutored, performed and gave a series of lecturesto participants on the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Style Workshop, as well as directing Orchestra Victoriain music of Bach and Rameau. He performed Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the 2009 Festival Baroque inPerth and the 2010 Peninsula Festival, the latter of which was broadcast on ABC Classic FM.

Neal Peres Da Costa holds several degrees including a PhD from the University of Leeds. He has givenpapers at many conferences, most recently at the ‘Interpretive Choices in Beethoven’ Conference inOslo (2009) and, via videoconferencing, the Royal College of Music’s ‘Music and Ideas Worldwide: A Symposium on Historical Performance’ (2010). His monograph Off the Record: Performing Practicesof the Romantic Pianist will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2012.

Neal Peres Da Costa appears courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Antony Walker

Sydney born and now resident in the US, Antony Walker was appointed Artistic Director and Conductorof Washington Concert Opera in 2002. In 2011 he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera, NewYork, conducting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Other engagements have included Adams’ Nixon in Chinaand the North American premieres of Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale and Petitgirard’s The Elephant Man(Minnesota Opera); Walton’s Troilus and Cressida (Opera Theater of Saint Louis); Handel’s Orlando and Semele (New York City Opera); Barber’s Vanessa (Chautauqua Opera); Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo(Glimmerglass Opera); Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades (Teatro Comunale, Bologna); Il tabarro,Cavalleria rusticana, Béatrice et Bénédict, Adriana Lecouvreur, Faust, Massenet’s Esclarmonde,Mercadante’s Il giuramento, Verdi’s Stiffelio, Rossini’s Tancredi, Otello and La donna del lago, andDonizetti’s Roberto Devereux and Maria Padilla (Washington Concert Opera); Lucia di Lammermoor(English National Opera); Maria Stuarda (Canadian Opera Company); Billy Budd, La bohème, The ItalianGirl in Algiers, Eugene Onegin, Falstaff, Aida, Carmen, Samson and Delilah, Lucia di Lammermoor andThe Barber of Seville (Pittsburgh); Madama Butterfly (Santa Fe and Arizona); and Carmen (Vancouver).He has also conducted Paris’ Orchestre Colonne in concert.

Engagements in Australia have included Alcina, The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, The Barber of Seville,Hansel and Gretel, The Magic Flute and Dido and Aeneas / Acis and Galatea for Opera Australia,

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Messiah with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and concerts with Orchestra Victoria. For PinchgutOpera, Antony Walker has conducted Semele, The Fairy Queen, L’Orfeo, Dardanus, Idomeneo, Davidand Jonathan and L’anima del filosofo. As Musical Director of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs,performances included Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and StMatthew Passion, Berlioz’s Te Deum, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Britten’sWar Requiem and the world premiere of Nigel Butterley’s Spell of Creation.

Antony Walker’s awards include the 2004 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album, the 1997 Sir CharlesMackerras Conducting Award, a Churchill Fellowship and a Queen’s Trust Award.

Orchestra of the Antipodes

Antony Walker music directorAlison Johnston manager

Initially formed as the Baroque arm of Sinfonia Australis, Orchestra of the Antipodes rapidly developeda thriving life of its own. Its members have played in many acclaimed and admired ensembles inAustralia and world wide, including Les Arts Florissants, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment,Academy of Ancient Music, Florilegium, Concerto Copenhagen, Australian Chamber Orchestra,Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian SymphonyOrchestras, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, Les Talens Lyriques and the VeniceBaroque Orchestra.

Its debut CD, Handel’s Messiah (also released on DVD), has drawn widespread critical acclaim; asubsequent disc of Bach Arias and Duets with Sara Macliver and Sally-Anne Russell quickly became abest seller, and was nominated for an ARIA Award in 2004. Other releases include Vivaldi’s JudithaTriumphans, Charpentier’s David + Jonathan and Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (Pinchgut Opera), BaroqueDuets featuring the Pergolesi Stabat mater (winner of the ABC Classic FM Listeners’ Choice Award in2005), Magnificat with Emma Kirkby, and a disc of Baroque choruses, Hallelujah!, performed withCantillation. The Orchestra’s recording of Mozart’s Requiem, on Classical instruments with Cantillationand soloists Sara Macliver, Sally-Anne Russell, Paul McMahon and Teddy Tahu Rhodes, and the ARIAAward-nominated album Bach Arias, also with Teddy Tahu Rhodes, were both released in 2010.

Recent projects have included the Australian premiere of Cavalli’s L’Ormindo for Pinchgut Opera,concerts at the Art Gallery of NSW, and a season with Opera Australia performing the double bill Didoand Aeneas / Acis and Galatea.

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Solo Violin

Anna McDonald CD1 1-7, CD2 1-6, £

Giovanni Grancino, Milan, Italy, c. 1690

Violin

Matthew Bruce CD1 1-4, $, CD2 ! violin I;

CD1 !

Anonymous, Germany, 18th century,

after Stradivarius

Sarah Dunn CD1 1-5, 7

Roderick Smith, Sydney, Australia, 1986

Julia Fredersdorff CD1 1-5, 7, CD2 1-3 violin I;

CD1 8-!, £, CD2 4, 6, 0

Anonymous, Germany, early 18th century

Dominic Glynn CD1 $, CD2 ! violin I; CD1 1-5,

7, CD2 1-3 violin II; CD1 8-0, £, CD2 0

Graham Caldersmith, Canberra, Australia, 1988

Anna McDonald CD1 $, CD2 ! violin I;

CD1 8-£, CD2 4-6, 0

Giovanni Grancino, Milan, Italy, c. 1690

Elizabeth Pogson CD1 1-5, 7, $, CD2 ! violin II;

CD1 !-£, CD2 £

Anonymous, after Sebastian Klotz

Emily Ward CD1 1-4 violin II; CD1 !

Anonymous, Romania, c. 1770

Myee Clohessy CD1 $, CD2 ! violin II

Anonymous, England, c. 1780

Viola

Nicole Forsyth CD1 1-5, 7-$, CD2 1-4, 6-!, £

Tenor-size viola by Ian Clarke, Biddeston, Australia,

1998, after Giovanni Paolo Maggini ‘Dumas’, c. 1680

Valmai Coggins CD1 1-4, 8-!, CD2 0, £

Adele Beardsmore & Alan Coggins, Blackheath,

Australia, 1995, after Stradivarius ‘Gibson’, 1734

Stefan Duwe CD1 8-0, CD2 7-9

Roger & Max Millant, Paris, France, 1964

Elizabeth Pogson CD2 0

Simon Morris Brown, Sydney, Australia, 2001,

after Stradivarius

Cello

Daniel Yeadon CD1 1-$, CD2 1-4, 6-!, £

Michael Watson, Kent, England, 1991,

after Guarnerius

Rosemary Quinn CD1 1-4, 8-!, CD2 0, @

Anonymous, Germany, early 19th century

Anthea Cottee CD1 8-!, CD2 0

Peter Walmsley, London, England, c. 1735

Viola da gamba

Miriam Morris CD2 7, 9

Seven-string bass viol by Ian Watchorn, Melbourne,

Australia, 1997, after Romain Cheron, Paris, c. 1700

Elizabeth Rumsey CD2 7, 9, @

Seven-string bass viol by Philippe Clément, Ottawa,

Canada, c. 1987

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Daniel Yeadon CD2 @

Petr Vavrous, Prague, Czech Republic, 2002,

after Bertrand, c. 1720

Bass

Kirsty McCahon CD1 1-0, @-$, CD2 1-4, 6-£

Giuseppe Abbati, Modena, Italy, c. 1750

Recorder

Hans-Dieter Michatz CD1 5-7, CD2 1-3, @, £

Treble recorder by Frederick Morgan, Daylesford,

Australia, 1987, after Thomas Stanesby Sr

(c. 1668-1734)

Voice flute (recorder in d’) by Frederick Morgan,

Daylesford, Australia, 1992/93 , after Peter Bressan

(1663-1731); used courtesy of Natasha Anderson,

Melbourne

Sally Meluish CD2 1-3, @

Frederick Morgan, Daylesford, Australia, 1990,

after Denner

Flute

Melissa Farrow CD2 4-6

Rudolf Tutz, Innsbruck, Germany, 2003, after Godfroid

Adrien Rottenburgh, c. 1747

Oboe

Antony Chesterman CD1 1-7, !-@, $, CD2 0, !

Marcel Ponseele, after Thomas Stanesby Jr, c. 1740

Kirsten Barry CD1 1-4, !, $, CD2 0

Toshi Hasegawa, c. 1995, after Jacob Denner,

Nuremberg, Germany, c. 1710

Owen Watkins CD1 1-4, CD2 0

Olivier Cottet, 1988, after Christian Schlegel, Basel,

Switzerland, early 18th century

Bassoon

Simon Rickard CD1 1-4, !, $, CD2 0

Mathew Dart, London, UK, 1995, after J.C. Denner,

c. 1690

Horn

Darryl Poulsen CD1 1, 3, 4, CD2 0

Webb-Halstead Baroque horn, London, 1995, after a

crooked horn by Joseph Leichnambschneider, c. 1720

Lisa Wynne-Allen CD1 1, 3, 4, CD2 0

Webb-Halstead Baroque horn, London, 1995, after a

crooked horn by Joseph Leichnambschneider, c. 1720

Trumpet

Will Wroth CD1 5, 7, !, £

Rainer Egger, Basel, Switzerland, 1991

Slide trumpet by Geert Jan van der Heide, Putten,

Netherlands, 2001

Leanne Sullivan CD1 !

Rainer Egger, Basel, Switzerland, bell after Johann

Leonhard Ehe II (1664-1724), Nuremburg, Germany

Helen Gill CD1 !

Rainer Egger, Basel, Switzerland, bell after Johann

Leonhard Ehe II (1664-1724), Nuremburg, Germany

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Timpani

Brian Nixon CD1 !

Lefima German Baroque-styled belt-driven

calf-headed copper timpani, 1999

Harpsichord

Erin Helyard CD1 1-!, CD2 1-9

Peter Watchorn, Hubbard Harpsichords, Boston,

USA, 1990

Neal Peres Da Costa CD1 @, £, CD2 0, @, £

Peter Watchorn, Hubbard Harpsichords, Boston,

USA, 1990

Chamber Organ

Neal Peres Da Costa CD1 !, $, CD2 !

Bernhard Fleig, Switzerland, 1996, used courtesy

of Sydney Grammar School

Executive Producers Martin Buzacott, Lyle Chan,

Robert Patterson

Recording Producers Ralph Lane OAM, Virginia Read

Recording Engineer, Editing and Mastering

Virginia Read

Assistant Engineer Patrick Mullins

Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb

Publications Editor Natalie Shea

Marketing and Catalogue Coordinator Laura Bell

Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd

Cover Photograph Green Violetear Hummingbird,

Costa Rica / Radius Images / Photolibrary

Session Photographs Gary Johnston © Australian

Broadcasting Corporation. Page 23 (clockwise

from top): Elizabeth Rumsey and Daniel Yeadon;

Nicole Forsyth; Elizabeth Pogson and Erin Helyard;

Lisa Wynne-Allen and Darryl Poulsen; Kirsty McCahon;

Melissa Farrow; Will Wroth and Antony Chesterman;

Anna McDonald and Julie Fredersdorff. Inside panel

(clockwise from top left): Hans-Dieter Michatz and

Antony Chesterman, with producer Virginia Read;

Rosemary Quinn; Matt Bruce and Emily Ward;

Julia Fredersdorff.

Organ Technician Manuel da Costa

Harpsichord Technician Terry Harper

Recorded 7-11, 22-25 and 27-30 August, 1 and

10 September, and 14 December 2003 in the Eugene

Goossens Hall of the Australian Broadcasting

Corporation’s Ultimo Centre, Sydney.

ABC Classics thanks Simon Brown and

Jonathan Villanueva.

www.abcclassics.com

� 2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. � 2011 AustralianBroadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and NewZealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence.Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyrightreserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, publicperformance or broadcast of this record without the authorityof the copyright owner is prohibited.

476 1923

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