Bach Keyboard Extravaganza
THE FANTASTIC FINALE to the International Piano Series at the College of Charleston is coming next Tuesday night.
It features an all Bach program for multiple pianos accompanied by a string ensemble of members from the College of Charleston Chamber Orchestra and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorenzo Muti. And all of the soloists are College of Charleston graduates.
This is not music that you typically hear on the radio or even on CD, partly because it is such an unusual combination of instruments.
The evening promises to be a spectacular finish to this season’s very successful series of concerts (thank you, Enrique).
TUESDAY • April 27 • $20/students free
J.S. Bach concertos for 2, 3, and 4 hands
8 PM • Sottile Theater • 44 George St
Program Notes by Lindsay Koob
During his years in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach had far more than just church music to attend to. As director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, he was also his city’s leading exponent of secular instrumental music. Bach, assisted by his two oldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philip Emanuel, was responsible for providing fresh chamber and orchestral music for the Collegium’s weekly meetings.
Bach met these duties in various ways. First, he recycled many suitable instrumental works that he had composed during his periods in Weimar and (especially) Cöthen, often rearranging them for different solo instruments. Next, he simply adapted the music of other composers to his requirements—then an accepted practice. Finally, he wrote new works from scratch. All three of these schemes gave rise to Bach’s concertos for multiple harpsichords, four of which will be performed as piano concertos.
Concerto in C Major for Two Pianos, BWV 1061
Like all the other concertos on the program, this piece follows the usual Baroque concerto model: scored for strings and continuo, with fast-slow-fast movement sequences. Written around 1730, it was almost certainly conceived as a work for two solo harpsichords; the comparatively sparse orchestral parts seem almost to have been added as an afterthought. The opening Allegro is an effervescent affair, with the two soloists blithely tossing their themes back and forth. The gentle central adagio is played by the soloists alone. Likewise, the ebullient closing fugue begins with the unaccompanied soloists who develop their contrapuntal motifs for quite awhile before the strings finally join them.
Concerto in D Minor for Three Pianos, BWV 1063
Some music historians believe that this is a transcription of unknown work(s) by other composers. But most believe that the piece’s freshness and contrapuntal vitality could only be the work of Bach, and that he probably wrote it for his own performance (along with his two sons) at his Leipzig Collegium concerts. This stands to reason as the first harpsichord part (the one that Papa Bach would’ve certainly played) dominates with its greater technical challenge and pair of solo cadenzas in the first movement. In any case, the substance and power of its outer movements, plus the central movement’s subdued pathos, make this one of Bach’s finest of the genre.
Concerto in C Major for Three Pianos, BWV 1064
Some have criticized Bach’s keyboard concertos—with their overlapping contrapuntal complexities—as being forbiddingly dense and “overwritten.” But this concerto would seem an exception. The solo keyboard parts tend to stand out more clearly, as they are comparatively independent, and because of the orchestra’s often “solistic” roles. Believed to be a transcription of a (now lost) concerto for three violins, it remains a favorite of its kind. The first two movements are among Bach’s deepest and most wide-ranging. Keyboard players love it, too, as all three soloists get their own virtuosic cadenzas in the jaunty finale.
Concerto in A Minor for Four Pianos, BWV 1065
This is the only work in this group that can be firmly attributed to another composer. Bach arranged it from Italian master Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, Op. 10/3, during his Weimar period. Musicologists generally agree that he improved on the original by refining and extending Vivaldi’s counterpoint while enriching and clarifying his harmonic structure. Bach did likewise for the four solo parts, giving the keyboard players ample opportunities to shine.
(Lindsay Koob writes his regular blog Eargasms for the Charleston City Paper.)
Enrique Graf, Artist in Residence at the College of Charleston, is Director of the International Piano Series.
Click here to get ticket information.
