Bach, J.S.: Violin Concertos, Bwv 1041-1043

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Cat No: 8550194

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030501942

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BACH, J.S.

Description
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041 Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042 Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1043 Violin Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1023 (arranged by Ottorino Respighi) Air on the G String (from BWV 1068)Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach in 1685, the youngest son ofa town and court musician and member of a family with long musical traditions.An orphan by the age of ten, he moved to Ohrduf, where his elder brother wasorganist, embarking, in 1703, on a professional career as a musician.Employment as organist at Arnstadt and later at M??hlhausen was followed by aperiod of eight years as court organist at Weimar, and a further period from1717 to 1723 as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen, the socialsummit of his career. Bach left the Prince's service in 1723 to take up theposition of Cantor at the Choir School of St. Thomas in Leipzig, where he wasresponsible for the music of the major city churches, and later directed theuniversity Collegium Musicum established there by Telemann in 1702. He remainedin Leipzig for the rest of his life.Bach was a prolific composer, his compositions corresponding verylargely with his current responsibilities. Many of his works for organ werewritten in earlier years, while his primarily secular responsibilities atCothen, where the prevailing Pietism at court excluded elaborate musicalactivity in church, elicited a number of instrumental compositions. Initiallyat Leipzig he worked to meet the demand for church cantatas, later turning hisattention to the repertoire of the Collegium Musicum and to the collection andpublication of many of his earlier works.The three violin concertos that survive in their original form, the Concerto in A minor, the Concerto in E major and the Double Concerto in D minor, scored forstrings and basso continuo, were all written during Bach's period of employmentas Kapellmeister at Cothen, where the young prince Leopold, a keen amateur,showed a great interest in music that was only curtailed by his marriage at theend of 1721 to a woman that Bach was later to describe as "amusa",lacking in any musical inclinations. It was this marriage, nine months afterhis own second marriage to Anna Magdalena, that caused his application toLeipzig and his departure. The three concertos also exist in transcriptions forharpsichord made by the composer in Leipzig, with other concertos that surviveonly in such transcription.The Concerto in A minoropens with a characteristic figure, which forms a repeated element in themovement. There is a fine-spun melody over a repeated bass figure in the slowmovement and a final gigue movement which includes brief moments of technicaldisplay by the soloist. The rather more complex Concerto in E major opens witha movement in which the first figure assumes considerable importance in what isto all intents and purposes a da capo aria. There is a slow movement ofsustained beauty over a repeated bass figure, and
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