Happy Sunday! Today we will enjoy a new concert (we could almost say great concert) for keyboard that we like so much. Bach was a true virtuoso of the instrument, so it is perfectly appreciated that he knew what he had in hand.
Let’s continue with the biography of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) German composer born in Eisenach. Last week we saw how his library of scores was quite extensive and rich. We can also find in them theoretical works, although many volumes have been lost. It seems that he had the harmonic documents (1687) by Angelo Berardi, a German version of Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux (1742), another of Der General-Bass in der Composition (1728) by Johann David Heinichen, from Musicalisches Lexicon of Walther (1732) and the Orgel-Probe of 1698 by Andreas Werckmeister, although only the Latin version of Fux’s work has survived from that library. He also had a good collection of theological works, although only the Lutheran edition of the Bible with Abraham Calov’s commentaries has survived.
Let’s hear your Concerto for Harpsichord, Strings and Continuum No. 7 G Minor, BWV 1058. This is a keyboard version of the violin concerto BWV 1041, with the key at a lower second interval. Scholars say that this concerto has the most prominent harpsichord part of all his keyboard concertos. As we have found with others, it is not a version but almost seems like a new work, with the original as a starting point. The tempo markings of the original are also maintained (none in the first movement and Allegro Assai for the third). Bach reaches in this piece a very special depth.
The score of the composition can download here.
The version is from Ilpo Laspas (harpsichord) and the Helsinki Festival Chamber Orchestra.
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Bach, harpsichord concerto BWV 1058