Program Book

Saturday, December 31, 2022 at 8PM at Calderwood Studio at GBH, Boston, MA
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 3PM at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

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Boston Baroque
Martin Pearlman, Music Director

Martin Pearlman, conductor

Program Notes
by Martin Pearlman

J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 

To His Royal Highness Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, etc., etc., etc.  Sire:  Since I had the happiness of playing at the command of Your Royal Highness a few years ago, and I saw that you took some pleasure in the small talents for music that Heaven has given me, and that, in taking leave of Your Royal Highness, you did me the honor of asking that I send you several of my compositions: therefore, following your gracious command, I take the liberty of offering my most humble respects to Your Royal Highness with the present concertos, which I have arranged for several instruments. . .

With these words, Bach offered to the Margrave of Brandenburg, the youngest son of the Prince-Elector, some of the most sublime music ever written.  The date of the dedication was March 24, 1721, and the volume, neatly copied out in Bach's own hand, was entitled "Six concertos with several instruments. . ."  (The popular title "Brandenburg Concertos" was bestowed more than a century and a half later by Bach's biographer, Philipp Spitta.) 

As he says, Bach had met the Margrave and played for him only a few years earlier in Berlin, while on a visit to find a new harpsichord, and the Margrave had asked Bach to send some of his compositions.  But what the Margrave thought of these concertos or whether he actually had any of them performed is unclear.  There is no record that Christian Ludwig ever thanked Bach for sending his music, and the original score looks like it was never used, although, of course, copies could have been made.  In fact, most of these concertos did not fit the make-up of the Margrave's personal band, whereas the ensemble that Bach was then directing at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen would have been well suited for these concertos.  Clearly, Bach did not compose the music specially for the Margrave, but gathered together in one volume six of the concertos that he had composed for his own use over a period of years.    

The Brandenburgs grow out of Bach's long fascination with the latest concertos of Vivaldi and other Italian composers, and they are often cited as the culmination of that genre, but they are more than a summation.  They go well beyond their models in their structure and instrumentation.  Each of the six Brandenburg Concertos is scored for a different combination of instruments, and each combination is unique in the repertoire. 

Of these six concerti, the second, fourth and fifth work well with either a small band of one player to a part, such as Bach seems to have had at Cöthen, or a larger ensemble with multiple strings, as would have been employed at some of the more wealthy establishments of the time.The first concerto, the early version of which precedes Bach's employment at Cöthen, has a richer orchestral texture and is better balanced with multiple strings.The third concerto, on the other hand, is likely meant for solo players on each part, for reasons discussed below. The sixth concerto too essentially a chamber piece with one player to a part, with the unusual tutti ensemble, which includes the transparent sounds of gambas, being almost the same size as the solo group.

The Sixth Brandenburg Concerto has the darkest sound of any of the six concertos, for here Bach completely omits the violins and leaves the highest sounds to the middle-range violas.  As we would expect from a concerto, Bach does contrast solo and tutti groups of instruments, but he must do so with minimal resources, since this work is really for a chamber ensemble.  The solo trio of two violas and cello is contrasted with only four other instruments: harpsichord and violone playing the continuo bass and two violas da gamba filling in the middle voices.  The viola da gamba, already something of an early instrument by Bach's time, lends a transparent sound that is exotic in a concerto ensemble.  Indeed, the striking orchestration of this work suggests that it may have been written earlier than the other Brandenburgs, since in Weimar, Bach had written other music with similar low orchestrations.  On the other hand, it may date from early in Bach's time at Cöthen (1717); Prince Leopold, his new employer, was an amateur gambist, and the relatively limited gamba parts in this concerto could perhaps have been meant to give Leopold a chance to play with the ensemble. 

J.S. Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 2

Compared to the enormous body of Bach's vocal music, there are relatively few purely orchestral works from his pen.  Aside from solo concertos, we have the six Brandenburg Concertos and the four Orchestral Suites, the former representing the pinnacle of writing in the Italian concerto style and the latter the equivalent culmination for the French style.  Unlike the Brandenburgs, however, the Orchestral Suites were never assembled by Bach into a single finished volume. We have no autograph scores for these works and therefore know the music principally through instrumental parts copied out by various copyists, including, among others, Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, his student Johann Ludwig Krebs, and very occasionally Johann Sebastian himself.

Each of the four suites begins with an overture in the French style, with its characteristic stately opening followed by a faster, contrapuntal section and ending with a closing section in the affect of the opening.  These are by far the weightiest and longest movements of the suites, so much so that Bach (like some other composers) referred to the entire suites as "Ouverturen".  The center of gravity is therefore toward the beginning of the suites, while the movements that follow the overtures are shorter dances and character pieces. 

The numbering of the suites is not by Bach but follows what was originally thought to be the order of their composition.  However, that chronology has been revised in recent years.  The first and fourth suites are both thought to date from the mid-1720's, not long after Bach took up his position in Leipzig; the third dates from 1731 and the second from the late 1730's.  The order of suites on the present recording follows not the numbering but this rough chronology.

The second suite is the most lightly scored of the four.  Written for a single flute, strings and harpsichord continuo, some people have considered it a solo flute piece, much like a concerto, and, in order to balance the solo flute, have performed the work with only solo strings in the orchestra.  However, the writing, particularly in the overture, is just as full and the character just as weighty as in the other suites, and it does not suggest an exceptionally light sonority.  Using multiple violins need not bury the sound of the flute, but the two can be blended into a richer sonority, especially with the sound of the wooden flute and the gut strings of Baroque instruments.  On this recording, where the flute simply doubles the violins in much of the overture, we use the larger string ensemble, but where there is a solo passage for flute, we reduce the accompaniment to solo strings.  Thus there is a lively alternation of solos and tutti in the orchestra for the overture, as well as in certain other movements of the suite. 

Of the other movements, the Sarabande is highly unusual in that the bass line imitates the violins and flute in a canon at the fifth throughout the movement.  It is the kind of intellectual play that Bach enjoyed, but it is worked out so gracefully and is so unexpected in a dance movement of this kind that it is easy to miss.  Here the inner voices of the second violins and violas need to be light enough that the canon in the outer voices is heard, while at the same time providing their own interesting counterpoint.  Through all this contrapuntal play we must feel the slow, underlying pulse of the dance, the Sarabande.

In the Polonaise, the flute first plays the tune as part of the orchestra.   Then in a variation, it plays soloistic figuration, while the bass line repeats the original tune. 

The suite ends not with a dance but with a character piece, the Badinerie.  The title is related to the Badinage ("banter" or "playfulness"), which one finds occasionally in suites by other composers.  In recent times, this movement has become popular as a lightning-fast virtuoso show-piece for flutists.   But while it is a quick piece, it still can suggest some of the character of a dance, beginning phrases in the middle of the bar, almost like a fast gavotte.

Georg Philipp Telemann: Concerto in E minor for Flute and Recorder

This concerto for flute and recorder presents—in period-instrument performances—a subtle contrast of the sonorities of these two kinds of wooden flutes.  The two solo parts are interwoven in fascinating and delightful ways throughout the concerto, but they are particularly beautiful in the E major Largo of the third movement.   

The folk character of the final Presto suggests the influence of Telemann's time at the court at Sorau (1705-6), when he would make excursions into the Polish countryside.  There, according to his own account, he would listen for days to the improvisations of folk fiddlers and bagpipe players.  Inspired by what he heard, he tells us that he wrote concertos and other works which he "dressed in an Italian coat." 

Antonio Vivaldi: Motet, “O qui coeli”

For a good part of his career, Vivaldi was music director at the Ospedale della Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice.  One of several such institutions in the city, the Pietà was famous for the high level of its singers and instrumentalists, and its concerts attracted tourists from Italy and beyond, as well as financial support from the city and private patrons.  Vivaldi had already been at the Pietà for a decade as a violin teacher and director of the orchestra, when, in 1713, the choirmaster Francesco Gasparini took a sudden and, as it turned out, permanent leave from his post.  Vivaldi filled the position on a temporary basis for six years, directing the choir and writing religious and other vocal music in addition to fulfilling his regular duties, until a permanent replacement was found.

Among the vocal works that he produced during that time were a number of Latin motets.  These were pieces for solo voice with string ensemble, all in the form of aria-recitative-aria-Alleluia.  With the three arias, the last of which was a virtuosic Alleluia, they formed a kind of vocal concerto.  It was a typical form for Italian motets of the time, the most famous of which is Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate. 

While the names of soloists for Vivaldi's motets are not recorded, one wonders whether they were all current students, since some of the motets (e. g. the soprano motets Nulla in mundo and O qui coeli) have quite virtuosic vocal parts, particularly in their Alleluia finales, where the writing can be almost like a violin concerto.  On occasion, performers at the Pietà included former residents who had become well known virtuose but who, as women, sometimes had difficulty finding work in the professional world.  Perhaps some of the motets were written for such soloists.

While these works are in Latin, they are not liturgical.Their texts may have been meant as moral lessons for the girls at the school, but they are in fact in a rather decadent Latin that can be at times problematic to translate.The unknown authors may well have been local or perhaps even at the Pietà.

Text & Translation

Vivaldi, "O qui coeli"

Boston Baroque Orchestra

VIOLIN I
Christina Day Martinson, concertmaster
Jesse Irons, assistant concertmaster
Julia McKenzie
Danielle Maddon
Megumi Stohs Lewis
Laura Gulley

VIOLIN II
Sarah Darling*
Asako Takeuchi
Amy Sims
Jane Starkman
Rebecca Nelson

VIOLA
Jason Fisher*
Barbara Wright
Lauren Nelson

VIOLONCELLO
Michael Unterman*
Cullen O'Neil
Matt Zucker

VIOLA DA GAMBA
Andrew Arceci*
Rebecca Shaw

VIOLONE
Motomi Igarashi*

FLUTE
Joseph Monticello*

RECORDER
Aldo Abreu*

HARPSICHORD
Peter Sykes*
Martin Pearlman (Brandenburg)

*Principal

The orchestra performs on period instruments.

Livestream Director
Matthew Principe