Works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Volume 2: The Smithsonian Collection of Recordings

It is hard to overestimate the effect Johann Sebastian Bach had on the shaping of so-called "classical music," though in his lifetime (1685-1750) he was known as a master on the harpsichord and organ and as a builder of the latter.  As a composer, however, he was all but unknown, a status that, remarkably, did not change until the onset of the nineteenth century, even as he was acknowledged by such masters as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to have had a profound influence on their development.  The other pervasive legacy left by Bach is equal temperament as best laid out in his The Well-Tempered Clavier works for keyboard.  Even though his tuning system is not reflective of the natural harmonics generated by the vibrations of strings, the tempered scales became and remain standardized and allow for considerable freedom in transposing keys on an instrument like the piano which has a fixed pitch orientation, despite attempts by some, including the remarkable Harry Partch, to convince the world otherwise. 

This five-disc set, the second volume, issued as the "Smithsonian Collection of Recordings" provides a taste of the remarkable diversity of Bach's composing during the first half of the 18th century.  The solemn, stately, dramatic and highly affecting "St. John Passion" concerning John's version of the crucifixion of Christ, was written in the 1720s and are performed, either on period instruments or modern ones modeled after them, by the Smithsonian Chamber Players and Chorus, recorded in the Renwick art gallery at the Smithsonian in March 1989.  A beautifully and richly composed set of three sonatas and three partitas for violin were composed just prior to the "St. John Passion" and was performed by Jaap Schröder in the Oltingen, Switzerland church in the mid-80s.  Lastly, there are two concertos and an overture on harpsichord, where the counterpoint comes across more strongly than on a fortepiano, which did not displace the former in superiority until later, recorded by James Weaver on a contemporary instrument based on a 1730s harpsichord, exactly 33 years ago at the National Museum of American History.  These are excellent recordings reflective of the diversity of a towering seminal figure in European music and, with a new lockdown in place here, this music provides some relief from renewed restrictions.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerti for Harpsichords, Recorders, Flute and Violins

This excellent recording on the Naxos label by the Cologne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Helnut Müller-Brühl features four concertos by the great composer with emphasis on the lighter-sounding instruments of harpsichord, recorder, flute and violin.  With all of the harmonic richness and melodic expressiveness representative of the baroque style mastered by Bach, the disc provides a great cross-section of concertos, an area of Bach's work which received relatively scant attention compared to his organ and clavier (pre-piano) work.

The Concerto in A Minor for harpsichord, violin and flute is, as the liner notes observe, a companion piece of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto, a famed series, though it is in a slower tempo and with a more restrained sense of dynamics.  Copies of the score, however, are from students who made their transcriptions after Bach's death in 1750, so estimates place the composition at around 1740.

The Concerto in F major for two recorders and harpsichord is immediately familiar with its bright and famed melody being the precursor of the fourth Brandenburg Concerto.  Dating also to about 1740, the work includes a single violin part reproduced on the harpsichord, while it is fascinating to hear the complement of recorders with violin.

Utilizing three harpsichords, the Concerto in D Minor is complicated and brisk piece and appears to date to 1730.  It was also said to be a featured piece for the master and two sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, to perform.  The second movement is slower and more stately with a lilting dance movement guiding it.  Finally, the third movement, performed in a fugue form, is a dense and uplifting one, providing a nice closure to the piece.

The final of the four concertos is in C is also for three harpsichords, though it is performed with violins here.  Two separate works are combined here and the performance is very beautiful with the sweeping grace of the violins contrasting with the crisp sounds of the keyboards.  A simpler, more subdued second movement has a slower tempo and a yearning melody of great emotional content.  Returning to a faster tempo and more complex harmonization, much like in the first movement, the third contains pretty performances on the violin and provide an excellent way to end a very entertaining disc.

Bach's amazing compositions with their palette of refined harmonics, gorgeous melodies, and demands placed on the soloists and accompanying musicians is on full display and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra deserves kudos for their sensitive renderings of these fine works.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Multiple Concerti

This is another excellent Naxos label recording from 1995 by the Cologne (Germany) Chamber Orchestra of four concerti by the great baroque master, J. S. Bach.  In this case, the use of the harpsichord and recorder provide for original instrumentation that give a close approximation of how this amazing music would have sounded when the composer wrote and performed the pieces over three centuries ago.

Except that  it is not known what instruments were utilized by Bach when these were created, except for the harpsichord.  Existing necrologies, catalogs of the works, only, as the liner notes by Peter Wollny indicate, listed, "a quantity of other instrumental works of all kinds and for various instruments," although a given concerto could include up to four harpsichords.

Bach's works for organ and the harpsichord or other keyboard instruments are far more known than the most ensemble pieces, such as these, though the Brandenburg Concertos are very popular, but he did compose a great many concertos and the author of the notes speculated that the sheer quantity may have precluded specific descriptions of the instrumentation used for them by his son, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola in their necrology.  Alternatively, he worked much of his life in the employ of German royalty and may have left many of his concerto manuscripts in the places he worked as part of his contracts.

In any case, these are beautiful works, light, stately, filled with gorgeous melodies and harmonic interplay between the instruments.  As pointed out in the notes, one of these, the F Major, was the original version of the famed fourth Brandenburg Concerto, with the original's organ part transcribed for the violin, while the first in the set, the A Minor (also known as the Triple Concerto, because of its instrumentation of harpsichord, flute and violin), is related to the fifth Brandenburg in style.  Moreover, we learn from the liners that the first two movements come from earlier works, namely the Prelude with a Fugue and the Trio Sonata for organ.

The D Minor is for three harpsichords and the orchestra and it was thought by some that Bach wrote this for himself and his two older sons for their development as musicians, though the author of the notes disputes this on the basis of how the solo instruments were scored.

The D Major, of which surviving versions are for either two or three harpsichords and orchestra, but accepted practice is to use three violins or violin and oboe.  Wollny observes that it "is a work of great density and almost symphonic dimensions," which is why an orchestra was employed in those surviving versions.  As he notes, the soloists perform very complex and difficult sections in the first movement and there the allegro tempo is repeated in the third movement, while a very beautiful melodic line comes in the second movement's adagio form.

It is still hard to believe that, in his time, Bach was better known as an organist than a composer, with his reputation in the latter not coming to the fore until over a half-century after his death.  These concertos are great examples of his genius and are well performed by an excellent chamber ensemble and issued by a superior budget label.

Johann Sebastian Bach:  Multiple Concerti  (Naxos, 1995)

Concerto in A Minor  21:56
Concerto in F Major  15:03
Concerto in D Minor  13:24
Concerto in D Major  16:32

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier

Where can anyone possibly start when it comes to so-called "classical music," or "serious music," or, even just "music" (as if everything else somehow isn't)?  Not only is the chronology extensive, but the arbitrary periods and genres (Early, Baroque, Romantic, Atonal,, Musique Concrete, Minimalist, etc.) are many and vast.

For this fundamentally untutored listener, though, perhaps the earliest experience that had a major impact on my enjoyment of "classical" was Johann Sebastian Bach, first through his violin works, then violcello (cello) pieces, next the organ, and then finally the cembalo or harpsichord.  Bach (1685-1750) was actually best known as an organist in his lifetime and his compositions were not given their due until his musical descendants, principally Mozart and Haydn in the later 1700s and then Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and others, began to use his contrapuntal (counterpoint being the use of two or more harmonically independent voices--the last point, for example, touched upon the polyphony of the Bulgarian female choir music) methods and Bach's reputation as a composer was forever established.

One of Bach's most important works (and there are many, many of them) from the standpoint of the history of music, as well as study and listening enjoyment is The Well-Tempered Clavier, a series two-dozen preludes and fugues ranging from  2 1/2 to over 8 minutes in length.  The composer issued his first edition of these pioneering works in 1722, stating that they were "for the advantage and use of all studious ad musical youth as well as for those already attending a university, set up for their special diversion . . ."  Though the intent was clearly academic, at least for the publishing of the series, the "special diversion" also falls to untold numbers of listeners, including laypersons like YHB, who simply enjoy the pieces for their beauty, harmonic complexity, and range of styles.



The "well tempered" aspect concerns the tuning of the instrument (harpsichord in Bach's time, the piano in ours) so that the twelve notes contained in an octave are tuned to allow for the playing of all 24 major and minor keys.  This greatly expanded the palette of the keyboard for composers and, though Bach was not the first to investigate "pantonal" ideas, his system became paramount for anyone following him, at least until modern (early 20th century) music brought such developments as atonal composition, where keys were jettisoned completely, from such compsoers as Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky, and twelve-tone serial work by Arnold Schoenberg and others, and the highly esoteric, but fascinating work of Harry Partch, who had his own notation system based on 43 notes played on his own custom instruments--truly amazing stuff!

Those with limited understandings (such as YHB) can, at least, listen to "early music" first and then that of Bach to hear the greater richness, variety and depth that his contrapuntal ideas generated relative to harmony, usually with three or four voicings in the pieces in The Well-Tempered Clavier, without having to be extensively schooled in the finer technical points.

At any rate, Bach's music is always an excellent place to start, as was the case here, with exploring the world of "classical music."  Listening to Bach and other Baroque composers like Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Telemann and Georg Handel and then continuing to later composers like Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and others is an opportunity to see how the early ideas of counterpoint are developed and extended through the 19th century.  Then, the explosive contrasts with "modern" 20th-century music becomes, at least for this listener, more understandable, as earlier notions of tuning, modulation, counterpoint, harmony and other aspects are challenged.  Even with the limited range of listening of YHB, the journey through the varied aspects of "classical music" has been and continues to be exciting and educational and you don't have to be a music snob to enjoy the trip.

The image shows the cover of a two-CD issue of The Well-Tempered Clavier (or, in this case, The Well-Tempered Piano, even though a harpsichord or cembalo is played) by the German budget label Pilz (love those Pilz and Naxos releases!) in 1989.  It's not Glenn Gould or Andras Schiff, but Christiane Jaccottet (1937-1999), a Swiss harpsichordist and professor at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, whose playing is outstanding.