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About the Music.

A Note from Colin Jacobsen

As I write this, hope is blooming along with spring in New York: hope that life is returning to a semblance of normal; hope that we will indeed be back in our favorite garden of musical and horticultural delights with you in person!

We were grateful that several months before the pandemic, we were able to record audio and video of J.S. Bach’s beloved Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in the Music Room at Caramoor. Our version features an arrangement of Paul Simon’s American Tune as the second movement (instead of the two cadential chords that hint at an improvised cadenza at the very least, if not a full movement that Bach himself might have inserted). Coming at perhaps “the age’s most uncertain hour” (lyric from American Tune), we were thankful that it was possible to share it last year in the dark spring of 2020. Bach’s music, long lauded for its balance of head, heart, and spirit, gives a sense that joy, suffering, life, and death all have their place in the universe. It is these themes that may have drawn Paul Simon to borrow from Bach’s setting of a Lutheran hymn, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded for his meditation on the American experience. Simon’s American Tune was written in 1973, in a deeply divided nation, in the midst of the tail end of the Vietnam War and the Nixon impeachment proceedings.

American Tune is sung by the multitalented and courageous Knights’ violinist Christina Courtin — in this performance you’ll see her holding down one of the virtuoso violin parts, and then stepping forth to the front of the group and singing Simon’s song before retreating back into the circle for the joyous conclusion of Bach’s concerto. Encoded in the song itself (born as a Lutheran hymn, to Bach chorale, to American folk/pop song) is a typical American story of inspiration, assimilation, and transformation. Simon sensed the power of the melody to console; its sense of resignation mixed with hope, and his lyrics reflect those themes. It’s wonderful to finally be able to play this live at Caramoor for you today!

One of the more memorable moments of the last year for The Knights was our livestream from the Music Room at Caramoor, where we were able to give the world premiere of composer Anna Clyne’s Shorthand. That piece, written for and performed by the wonderful Knights cellist Karen Ouzounian last summer, continues a longstanding relationship between The Knights and Anna. Today we bring you her double concerto for two violins and strings, Prince of Clouds, featuring Alex Gonzalez and myself on the solo parts.

Another fruit of The Knights’ work during the pandemic was a virtual audio and video recording of Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst. Jessie is a long-time friend of many Knights musicians and has played with the group herself numerous times (she’s a wonderful violinist as well as Summer 2021 III composer). Our recording of a new version of Starburst for winds, piano, and strings was originally

conceived as a video project but we were happily surprised by the audio results (of circa 20 people all recorded remotely), so much so that Starburst was recently released on an album of Jessie’s works. Today we’ll be performing the original piece for string orchestra.

— Colin Jacobsen

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

(1685–1750)

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048

About the Composer

Although Bach was best known as a virtuoso on the organ and harpsichord, he was also a highly proficient violinist. He learned to play the string instrument as a child — probably under the tutelage of his father, a town piper in Eisenach — and, according to his composer-son Carl Philipp Emanuel, he developed a “clear and penetrating” technique. This dual ability was surely a factor in Bach’s first major appointment as capellmeister, or director of music, to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen in 1717. The young composer felt lucky to be in the employ of a “a gracious Prince who both loved and knew music.” Thanks to Leopold’s interest and generosity, he had at his disposal a group of some 16 expert instrumentalists who inspired not only the Brandenburg Concertos but also his great unaccompanied works for violin and cello. Years later, when Bach became director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, the Brandenburgs were among the repertoire featured on the public subscription concerts he organized at Zimmermann’s coffeehouse. Patrons of the popular watering hole regularly saw him leading the resident orchestra from the concertmaster’s stand.

About the Work

The six concerti grossi that Bach dedicated to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg in 1721 range widely in both style and instrumentation. On the title page of the presentation copy, the composer identified them (in French) as “six concerts avec plusieurs instruments,” or “six concertos for several instruments.” Scholars have long debated whether he was referring to the varied instrumentation of the collection as a whole (each work calls for a differently constituted ensemble) or indicating that the concertos were to be performed with one player to a part. Even today, when reduced forces are the norm, it is not uncommon to hear the Brandenburgs played by larger orchestras. The basic requirement is that the contrast between soloists and full ensemble — the defining feature of the Baroque concerto grosso — be clearly maintained.

A Deeper Listen

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 is scored for strings and continuo, with the threesomes of violins, violas, and cellos treated as three separate choirs. Bach ingeniously mixes and matches these solisti groups to generate an astonishing variety of textures and sonorities. The concerto is laid out in the conventional three movements, fast-slow-fast, the outer sections characterized by exhilarating motor rhythms and captivating harmonic twists and