Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 972-987
General Discussions - Part 1

Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 972-987 - Discography

Aryeh Oron wrote (February 28, 2007):
Bach arranged 7 concertos by other composers for organ (BWV 592-598), 17 for solo harpsichord (BWV 972-987 & BWV 592a), and one for 4 harpsichords, strings and continuo.

Following previous discographies of Bach's keyboard works, I have added now a comprehensive discography of the concertos for solo keyboard BWV 972-987. AFAIK, this is the first ever web-discography of this group of works.

The short introduction to these works is extracted from Michael Talbot's article in OCC (OUP, 1999):

>> The original stimulus behind Bach's keyboard arrangements of concertos may have been the similar organ transcriptions that his friend and distant cousin J.G. Walther made for his gifted pupil Prince Johann Ernst of Sax-Weimar. But whereas nearly all of Walther's arrangements concern the first (pre-Vivaldian) generation of concerto composers, those by Bach are works by Vivaldi and his contemporaries. They most likely date from 1713-1714, following the return of Johann Ernst from his travel in the Netherlands. In fact, the prince himself figures strongly as a composer in Bach transcriptions. <> Of the 17 for harpsichord, six are by Vivaldi and four by Johann Ernst; Alessandro Marcello, his brother Benedetto, Telemann, and possibly Torelli each contributed one, leaving untraced the originals of three.
In making his transcriptions, Bach freely changed the key to suit the instrument's compass, transposed individual lines to facilitate performance, converted the ornamentation into forms more suitable for the keyboard, added harmonic and contrapuntal enrichment, and 'edited' a few details. All in all, however, his adaptations are respectful of the originals in basic matters. While one hesitates to claim, as German scholars once did, that the arrangements offer improvements on the originals, they all contain moments of inspiration, which show the presence of an exceptional creative mind. <<.

You can find the list and details of complete recordings of the solo keyboard concerto arrangements split into several pages, a page for a decade, starting at the page: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV972-987.htm
The list includes both recordings of all 16 Concertos (not too many, actually) and recordings of individual Concertos. Except of a few cases, recordings of individual movements are not included. All in all, 73 albums with the Concertos are listed. As in previous discographies in the BCW, each recording is listed only once. All the issues of each recording are presented together.

If you are aware of a recording of these works not listed in the discography, or if you find an error or missing information, please inform me, either through the BRML or to my personal e-mail address.

BCW: Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 972-987 - Revised & Updated Discograpy

Aryeh Oron wrote (August 27, 2011):
The discography pages of the Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 972-987 on the BCW have been revised & updated:
http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV972-987.htm
The discography is arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade, and includes 118 different recordings.
If you have any correction, addition, etc., please inform me.

BCW: Discographies of the Solo Keyboard Concertos BWV 971-987

Aryeh Oron wrote (July 25, 2013):
The discography pages of J.S. Bash's Italian Concerto and the 16 Concertos for Solo Keyboard (all of them arrangements of works by other composers) on the BCW have been updated. The discographies are arranged chronologically by recording date, a page per a decade. The discography pages are inter-linked. You can start, for example, at the last decade page (2010-2019) and go backward to pages of previous decades.
Italian Concerto BWV 971 (290 recordings of the complete work, including a page of arrangements/transcriptions):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV971-Rec8.htm
Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 982-987 (131 recordings of complete works):
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV972-987-Rec8.htm
If you have any correction, addition or completion of missing details, please inform me.

Solo Organ, Harpsichord Transcriptions

William L. Hoffman wrote (December 16, 2019):
Bach was at the forefront of composing Baroque concertos for various instruments during several periods. Initially in Weimar, he produced collections of works that began with arrangements primarily of Antonio Vivaldi violin concertos, five for organ, BWV 592-6, and 16 for harpsichord, BWV 972-87, to learn Italian concerto style and for court performance. By perfecting the Vivaldi ritornello form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritornello), Bach began to develop through the trio sonata texture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trio_sonata) extended church and chamber sonatas in four movements, particularly in Cöthen, as well as actual three-movement concertos (fast-slow-fast), and instrumental passages in his sacred cantatas.

Subsequently, Bach in Cöthen produced the now-popular and varied six Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-51, and possibly violin concertos. In Leipzig in the mid 1720s, he presented single-movement orchestral sinfonias for organ and strings in his sacred cantatas while composing two organ concertos. Beginning in 1729 when he directed the Leipzig Collegium musicum, Bach produced most of his accompanied concertos, notably for violin or for multiple harpsichords before 1733, as well as the transcriptions of various concertos for melody instruments, usually violin or oboe, about 1738, for solo harpsichord, BWV 1052-1059.

There are 22 solo concertos transcribed by Bach from Italian-style string concertos in 1713-14 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_concerto_transcriptions_(Bach)). These involve a collection of six concertos for solo organ without accompaniment, BWV 592-597, transcribed by Bach from concertos for strings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_concerto_(Bach), three by Vivaldi and two by Weimar Prince Johann Ernst (1696-1715, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Johann_Ernst_of_Saxe-Weimar). There are 16 concertos for solo harpsichord without accompaniment, BWV 972-987 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_concerto_transcriptions_(Bach)), including nine by Vivaldi, four by Johann Ernst, three unknown, and one each by Allesandro Marcello, Benedetto Marcello, and Georg Philipp Telemann. The transcriptions were commissioned by the Weimar Prince and performed by Bach in non-service recitals in the Weimar Schlosskirche.

Leading Bach scholars call Bach's encounter with the Vivaldi concerto the most significant event in his compositional history. "Bach's music had already taken a profoundly new direction during the summer of 1713," says Robert L. Marshall, "in the wake of his first extensive encounter with the modern Italian concerto, an event that decisively marked a new stage in the composer's artistic development."¹ "It was arguably the most significant artistic experience of his maturity — a 'watershed' event that fundamentally transformed his approach to composition," says Marshall (Ibid.: 87). The formal and tonal principles in these new concertos involved "the age-old principles of ritornello form [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritornello], now immeasurably enriched by the expanded harmonic resources of functional tonality — would inform almost every work he wrote henceforth," ha says (Ibid.: 88). Bach "was attracted to the rational tonal design and ritornello organization of the concerti that enabled the creation of unified, continuous instrumental movements on a hitherto unprecedented scale," says Marshall (Ibid.: 89).

Bach's Preparation for Italian Concerto

Bach was well-prepared for his encounter with the new Italian concerto. As early as his visit to Buxtehude in Lübeck late 1705, he encountered Italian style and arranged three of Johann Adam Reincken's Hortus musicus violin ensemble sonatas for keyboard, BWV 954, 965 and 966 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfdMKJMGPPtyfZduFVjVLGP3fvJ2550rl). His transcriptions may have been his attempts to "come to terms with the keyboard sonata as a genre" as well as "a kind of homage to the elderly Hamburg composer," suggests Werner Breig,² This adaptive "sequence corresponds to the course of Bach's study through arranging," says Christoph Wolff,³ "he begins with the transcription of a complete sonata, but then concentrates increasingly on the contrapuntal movements. Bach's arrangements of the noncontrapuntal movements consists of richly figured but generally exact clavier transcriptions of Reincken's instrumental originals." Another perspective dates these arrangements to Weimar (1708-17), given the "style of these episodes as well as the resulting concerto-like contrast between episode and thematic portions," says Robert Hill.⁴

"Bach learnt his craft by listening, studying, improvising, and then by making the music his own," says Nicholas Kenyon.⁵ "We cannot tell how many transcriptions or arrangements of the music by others he made that have been lost, but those that do survive tell a compelling story. Hie "did he learn to write concertos in the new Italian manner?" In 1709 Bach began arranging Telemann's Italian style Violin Concerto in G minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46eT5zEjtpg) for harpsichord (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46eT5zEjtpg), BWV 985 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeiFgpjrQP8), and copying Albinoni's "Sonata a Cinque in C Major Op. 2 No. 2" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayhbK8JeNKU). "These early copies and reworkings show that Bach was already involved with concerto form before his main interaction with Vivaldi's works," says Kenyon.

Subsequently, "The impact upon Bach of this encounter with the Italian Concerto was profound," suggests Richard D. P. Jones, ⁶ "providing him not only (in transcribed form) with vehicles for his own keyboard virtuosity but with compositional models that further extended his stylistic range and refined various aspects if his technique." Bach's cultivation of the concerto genre, "to a considerable extent, must have taken the form of performance as well as composition," says Jones in his monograph of Bach's creative development.⁷ "For the virtuoso demands made by the concertos the Bach transcribed" "at Weimar leave little doubt that they were intended for his own performance before a court audience."

Vivaldi Storms Europe

The concertos of Vivaldi "burst on the European scene in 1711 with the publication of his op. 3, L'estro armonico," says Michael Talbot.⁸ Alternating closed (ritornello) and open (episodic) sections, he created the concerto for one instrument, strings, and continuo (solo concerto), the "double" concerto, the "ensemble" concerto for three or more solo instruments, the "chamber" concerto for three or more solo instruments without orchestra, and the "ripieno" concerto for string orchestra without solo instruments. Bach responded by transcribing the violin solo and double concertos in Weimar and began composing his own violin concertos and eventually created violin and harpsichord works in the various concerto forms for various combinations of instruments. "Henceforth the sonata becomes a general repository of conservative musical values (including counterpoint), while the concerto embraces virtuosity, instrumental colour, and "showiness' of all kinds," says Talbot (Ibid.). "The Vivaldian scheme for the concerto remained virtually unchanged for the rest of the Baroque period, subsequently transforming itself by almost imperceptible degrees into the Classical concerto of the Haydn-Mozart period." Meanwhile Bach perfected the use of the ritornello form in other genres for solo instruments and ensembles.

Bach's confrontation "with the new concerto style provoked what was certainly the strongest single developmental step toward the formation of a genuine personal style," says Wolff in another essay.⁹ Bach recognized and realized that Vivaldi's concertos reflected a concrete compositional system based on a process of musical thinking in terms of order, continuity, and proportion" so that he was "learning to think musically." "The historical significance of Vivaldi's compositional method" "has its foundation in an enormously fruitful dialectic of two extremely different aesthetic premises," says Wolff (Ibid,.: 83), "simplicity (implying a broad spectrum from purity, clarity, and correctness to graceful and natural elegance) and complexity (implying intellectual involvement, sophisticated elaboration and rational control)." The history of musical composition, he says, finds "the prevailing role and eventual dominance of instrumental music as the principal and most congenial vehicle for the rigorous pursuit of a process if absolute 'musical thinking." "This process, guided by the abstract principles of" "order/organization, connection/continuity, relation-proportion introduced at the same time a new yardstick by which compositional competence, artistic individuality, and aesthetic value was ti be measured."

Bach's Motive, Method, Opportunity

Bach's motive, method and opportunity for transcriptions are now seen as complex, challenging, and rewarding. From a chronological perspective, Bach's concerto arrangements are viewed in the context of the development of the keyboard concerto. Bach assimilated swiftly into his personal style the elements of the Italian concerto style, most notably the ritornello themes, elemental scale- and broken-chord figures, driving rhythms and tonic-dominant harmony, observes Jones in his study of Bach's early composition development (Ibid.: 141). To his "decorative writing and keyboard brilliance" Bach adds counterpoint in the textures beyond the original so that the alterations and additions "are better appreciated, as signs of his full creative engagement with Vivaldi's music, he says (Ibid.: 151).

The reception of Bach's solo keyboard transcriptions involves a long history over several phases. It began with the comments of Bach's first biographer, Johann Nicholas Forkel in 1802, who regarded these arrangements as violin concertos that served Bach as model to "think musically," as "instruction material," with little regard for their intrinsic value as music adapted to another medium for performance. A century later scholar Arnold Schering, discovering the original sources of the other Italian music by Telemann, the Marcellos, and Prince Johann Ernst, "was able to define anew the 'background and purpose of the transcriptions'," says Schering, cited by Dr. Manfred Fechner.¹⁰ Hans-Joachim Schulze in the 1970s has shown that that the concerto transcriptions were done for performance at the instigation of Prince Johann.¹¹

Bach Solo Organ, Harpsichord Concertos

Best known of Bach's organ concerto arrangements is Vivaldi's Double Violin Concerto (Concerto Grosso) No. 3 in D minor, Op. 3, No. 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBp42PZZIZo), transcribed as BWV 596 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000679?lang=en, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjIEHLRUwoI). It is "a work of extraordinary meticulousness and can certainly hold its own as an independent piece of music," says Fechner (Idid. 36), with contrapuntal filling. There is a thematic kinship between the beginning of the final movement (without tempo indication, Allegro, BWV 21/1a) and the opening chorus of Cantata 21, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis" (I had much affliction) of 1713 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln9MBa8lXV4: 2:54), he observes. Concerto BWV 596 is the only organ concerto surviving in autograph (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001340) and originally was attributed to Friedemann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_concerto_(Bach)#Concerto_in_D_minor,_BWV_596).

The five Weimar organ transcriptions, BWV 592-6 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH-7YIqlrGQ&list=OLAK5uy_lxXLX77c0i9Nzeo5p0M-XxyJSQEHz1IFQ) Bach produced as part of a larger number of arrangements, to learn and teach new styles and to present music to larger audiences, says Elsie Pfitzer in her liner notes on Bach organ transcriptions.¹² It was part of a tradition dating to the Renaissance when polyphonic vocal works were transcribed to keyboard music through the process of intabulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intabulation).

There are 16 concerto transcriptions for harpsichord, BWV 972-87 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZjk7fWeAeo, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001222), Bach particularly relished the bright primary colors, driving rhythms, triadic tutti themes, idiomatic violin writing, clear ritornello structure and "freedom from constraint and schematism," says Jones (Ibid.: 136). The keyboard adaptations are from string concertos of Vivaldi, Weimar Duke Johann Ernst, Allesandro and Benedetto Marcello, and Georg Philipp Telemann. "Bach introduced numerous small changes into the solo parts, bass-lines, and often the inner parts as well, often adding voices to enrich the textures,: says Peter Watchorn in his recording of the harpsichord transcriptions.¹³ The works are: Concerto in G major (after Duke J. Ernst), BWV 592a; Concerto No. 1 in D major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 972 ; Concerto No. 2 in G major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 973; Concerto No. 3 in D minor (after A. Marcello), BWV 974; Concerto No. 4 in G minor (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 975; Concerto No. 5 in C major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 976; Concerto No. 6 in C major (after unknown composer), BWV 977; Concerto No. 7 in F major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 978, Concerto No. 8 in B minor (after Vivaldi), BWV 979 ; Concerto No. 9 in G major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 980; Concerto No. 10 in C minor (after B. Marcello), BWV 981; Concerto No. 11 in B flat major (after Duke J. Ernst), BWV 982; Concerto No. 12 in G minor (after unknown composer), BWV 983; Concerto No. 13 in C major (after Duke J. Ernst), BWV 984; Concerto No. 14 in G minor (after G.P. Telemann), BWV 985; Concerto No. 15 in G major (after unknown composer), BWV 986; and Concerto No. 16 in D minor (after Duke J. Ernst), BWV 987.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Robert L. Marshall, Chapter 5, Keyboard Music," in Bach and Mozart: Essays on the Enigma of Genius (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2019: 70).
² Werner Breig, "The arrangements of Johann Adam Reincken's Hortus musicus: Composition as arrangement and adaptation," in The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997: 160).
³ Christoph Wolff, "Bach and Johann Adam Reincken: A Context for Early Works," in Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991: 65).
⁴ Robert Hill, "Original and Transcription," liner notes, Hänssler edition bachadademie, Vol. 110 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1999: 12); http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Hill-Robert.htm: scroll down to K-8.
⁵ Nicholas Kenyon, Bach the Music, Bach 333, the J. S. Bach New Complete Edition (Berlin: Deutsche Grammaphon, 2018: 188)
⁶ Richard D. P. Jones, "The keyboard works: Bach as Teacher and Virtuoso," in The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997: 141).
⁷ Richard D. P. Jones, "Concerto Transcriptions," in The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol. 1, 1695-1717: Music to Delight the Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004: 141); https://books.google.com/books?id=-Pdssru1i8oC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=Jones+Creative+Development+Vol.+1+Weimar+transcriptions&source=bl&ots=nPMgkGzjj2&sig=ACfU3U3jNymvf1MkTEwkEpcQgt5iFaXEyw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlgtLkgLHmAhXUHM0KHbp8BlIQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Jones%20Creative%20Development%20Vol.%201%20Weimar%20transcriptions&f=false.
⁸ Michael Talbot, "concerto (Konzert), in Oxford Composer Companions: J. S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999: 119f); https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199757824/obo-9780199757824-0043.xml, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/Book-Boyd-Oxford.htm.
⁹ Christoph Wolff, Vivaldi's Compositional Art, Bach, and the Process of 'Musical Thinking'," in Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991: 74).
¹⁰ Arnold Schering, Zur Bach Forschung, in Sammelbände der internartionale Musikgesellschaft, IV (1903) 234; V (1904) 565, explained in Putnam Aldrich, "Bach's Technique of Transcription and Improvised Ornamentation," in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), pp. 26-35, on-line https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.unm.edu/stable/739578?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents; Scherin cited in Dr. Manfred Fechner, "Harpsichord and organ arrangements written in Weimar by J. S. Bach and J. G. Walther and their original models," liner notes (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Knebel-S.htm).
¹¹ Hans-Joachim Schulze, "Johann Sebastian Bachs Konzertbearbeitungen nach Vivaldi und Anderen — Studien- oder Auftragswerke?, in Deutsches Jahrbuch der Wissenschaft für 1973-77, ed. Rudolf Eller (Leipzig 1978: 80ff); cited in http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Trans1.htm: "Weimar Concerto Transcriptions").
¹² Elise Pfitzer, "Transcriptions: Concertos and Trios," Hänssler Edition CD 92.095, 2000: 14; http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NonVocal/Organ-Var-Dijk.htm.
¹³ Peter Watchorn, "Novel and startling effects: Bach's Concerto arrangements," liner notes http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Watchorn.htm: K-3.

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To Come: Bach's original concertos and their adaptations.

Concertos for Solo Keyboard BWV 972-987: Details
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Recording Reviews: Kevin Bowyer’s Bach Organ Series, Volume 13
Discussions: General: Part 1