7.00pm, Wednesday 13 November, Queen Elizabeth Hall
It’s always a real treat to get to play all six of the Brandenburg Concertos in one concert!
We often get to play them individually (usually 3, 4, or 5) in other instrumental programmes, or sometimes as a side dish next to a bigger work. I have nothing against this, but these concertos deserve to be the centre of attention. Playing the whole set together emphasises the extraordinary variety of instrumentation, textures and colours within it. Not only do we as a group get a chance to show off our virtuosity,
individually and collectively, but the composer also seems to be showing off! I’m imagining Bach asking himself: “How many different types of writing can I include in this set of concertos?” (Fugues, dances, trio sonata, improvisation…) “How many different instruments can I include? How many different instrument groupings can I find?” This is surely Bach at his most extravagant!
BY HUW DANIEL
WELCOME
to our 2024 / 25 season here at the Southbank Centre
Themusic that we love to play at the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a tangle of riddles and puzzles. Why did Bach choose the six concertos he did to become the Brandenburg Concertos? What is the secret theme hidden within the Enigma Variations? Why do certain works and composers achieve ‘Greatness’? Why are others overlooked? Why did Beethoven scratch out the dedication to Napoleon of the ‘Eroica’ Symphony? Why did Bruckner never hear his Fifth Symphony? How does music decode human sentiment? Or express the ultimate enigma, humanity’s relationship with the divine?
“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth”
UMBERTO ECO
5 Things to Know
1. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in March 1685 in Eisenach. Located in the modern central German state of Thuringia it is approximately 105 miles to the north-east of Frankfurt and 185 miles south-west of Berlin, with Leipzig about 105 miles to the west.
2. Bach never left what we now know as Germany. His parents died by the time he was 10 years old. He attended a choir school for poor boys in Lüneberg (near Hamburg), then at 18 began his career in Arnstadt followed by jobs in Mühlhausen and Weimar. After a protracted contractual argument, and a short spell in jail, Bach moved to the employ of Prince Leopold of Cöthen (to the north of Leipzig) in late 1717. Bach was then to have just one more job throughout his entire life: as director for church music of the city of Leipzig where he stayed from 1723 until his death in 1750.
These enigmas have always nourished the human imagination. The secret themes, lost manuscripts and broken celebrity crushes that tease us are all part of the thrill. The idea that we might solve the mystery drives us on. If we’re honest, though, we can’t promise to uncover all the answers for you. So that leaves us with a simple choice: go mad… or just decide to enjoy the music!
If there is an underlying truth to be found it is in the act of coming together to share this wonderful, messy cosmos of music – the gathering of the musicians of the OAE with our inspiring artistic partners and you, our audience. Together we might find the secret key: one that unlocks the door to joy, generosity and, of course, Enlightenment.
Thank you for being part of our enigmatic adventure.
3. Bach had compiled the ‘Brandenburg Concertos’ by early 1721 although some may have been composed up to ten years earlier. As Prince Leopold’s musical director he was in charge of chamber and orchestral music, producing many of his best known instrumental works here. The manuscript handed down to us was produced as a gift to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg.
4. The Brandenburg Concertos were first published in 1850. The manuscript is now in the Berlin State Library.
5. The first LP recording of the complete set was directed by Adolf Busch in 1934. Followers of our Bach, the Universe and Everything series will be interested to know that Concerto No. 2 is among the tracks included on the Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft.
Read about Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in more depth in Nicholas Kenyon’s article on page 4.
This concert is supported by Selina and David Marks
There will be a pre-concert talk with Nicholas
at 6.00pm in the Queen
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Huw Daniel piccolo violin / violin / director (1,4)
Margaret Faultless violin / director (3,5)
Rodolfo Richter violin / director (2)
Oliver Wilson viola / director (6)
Elitsa Bogdanova viola
Players in bold are OAE principal players
Annette Isserlis viola
Andrew Skidmore cello
Richard Tunnicliffe cello / viola da gamba
Kate Conway cello / viola da gamba
Cecelia Bruggemeyer double bass / violone
Lisa Beznosiuk flute
Rachel Beckett recorder
Catherine Latham recorder
Clara Espinosa Encinas oboe
Sarah Humphrys oboe
Grace Scott Deuchar oboe
Zoe Shevlin bassoon
Ursula Paludan Monberg horn
Martin Lawrence horn
David Blackadder trumpet
Steven Devine harpsichord
Kenyon, Steven Devine and Margaret Faultless
Elizabeth Hall Foyer.
THE BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS
Nicholas Kenyon
There are so many enigmas around Bach’s so-called ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos – including the title, which is not Bach’s and was invented only in the 19th century by his biographer Philipp Spitta. When was each concerto written, why were these particular six concertos put together in one set, why does each of them involve a puzzle of scoring, and why have they survived to become a leading light in the present-day revival of baroque music?
Don’t worry, we cannot answer all these questions definitively now, and be reassured that none of these uncertainties should stand in the way of our enjoying some of the most direct, brilliant, eloquent and exuberant music ever written!
Better maybe to start with the certainties. Bach’s autograph score, which miraculously survives, is dated 24 March 1721, sent to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, and is headed ‘Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments’ – that variety of many instruments is one of the keys to the collection. In a somewhat obsequious preface, also in French, Bach wrote:
As in taking leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness deigned to honour me with the command to send your Highness some of my Compositions, I have taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments.’ Bach’s deference to those who birth had placed above him contrasts strongly with his dislike of employers who inhibited his music-making. We cannot tell what was the real nature of the ‘command’ to which he refers: certainly the Margrave knew Bach’s employer Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, and he visited the court at Carlsbad in 1718. The following year, 1719, Bach paid a visit to Berlin to acquire a new harpsichord, and this might also have been the moment for an encounter.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) German organist and composer. Oil on canvas, 1720, by Johann Jakob Inhle. GRANGER – Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Perhaps the command was no more than a friendly, or patronising, encouragement for Bach to send him some music. Maybe it was a polite ‘Do send me some of your work sometime’, along the lines of our ‘Do let’s have lunch sometime’…. In either case, Bach was not one to miss a chance, and evidently went to some trouble to assemble this set of concertos. Whether he was consciously seeking employment at the Margrave’s court, or making a pitch for work, we cannot be sure. We know that while Prince Leopold loved music, his bride Princess Frederica did not, and we find that after their marriage in December 1721 a greater share of the prince’s budget was diverted away from music to the castle guard. Plus ça change…
In his remark at the end of the dedication that he has ‘adapted’ the concertos for several instruments, he is surely making clear that these were not work newly written for the Margrave, but had been specially tailored from existing material. The concertos may therefore reflect a lengthy period of gestation during the period when Bach’s attention was focussed on instrumental music during his time at the courts of Weimar and especially Cöthen, a period which also saw the composition of such masterpieces as the Six Solos (sonatas and partitas) for unaccompanied violin, whose equally beautiful autograph score is dated 1720. Some may go even further back in their origins.
What point was Bach making in this compilation? It does not seem to be a deeply symbolic assembly of works such as would come to dominate his collections of music in the following decades. The sequence of keys is not formal like those in the ‘48’ Preludes and Fugues for keyboard, nor is it weighted with symbolism like the organ works of Clavierübung Part 3, with its Trinitarian 27 (3x3x3) pieces framed by a prelude and fugue in the three-flats key of E flat. The six ‘Brandenburg’ concertos in F, F, G, G, D and B flat do not form a pattern. Some have tried to argue that there is a deeper logic to this set, and even an aspect of social criticism in the scoring (as in the emancipation of the lower instruments in No. 6); one leading director of the Brandenburgs, Reinhard Goebel, has commented on the symbolic nature of the scoring; but these ideas have not taken root.
They do however help point to the essential quality of this set, which is exactly the one Bach referred to in his preface: the instrumental variety. The significance of this has been well captured by leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff: ‘Every one of the six concertos set a precedent in its scoring, and every one was to remain without parallel’.
So another thought is that, far from trying to provide something simple for the Margrave’s court, Bach was consciously trying to demonstrate the superiority of his own resources and his
players’ skills. It was a form of cultural one-upmanship, saying to the Margrave’s court: ‘Look what we can do that you can’t!’.
This might help to explain one aspect of the concertos’ reception – that there is no evidence that the Margrave’s court musicians ever performed them. This is debatable, since in order to perform them, parts would be copied from the score, and not necessarily preserved with it; we certainly know that the score was kept in the library and not discarded. But who is to say how highly it was regarded?
The variety of the scoring also mirrors the individuality and continuing enigmas within the six concertos. Among the immediate puzzles are:
No. 1: why is there a violin piccolo – what is this instrument?
No. 2: did Bach agree that the high trumpet part could be replaced by a horn?
No. 3: what is the meaning of the two chords in place of a central movement?
No. 4: why has Bach described the two solo wind instruments as ‘fiauti d’echo’?
No. 5: who could have played the unprecedented keyboard solo part?
No. 6: why are there no violins or upper-pitch instruments?
Concerto No. 1 in F major (BWV 1046)
This has probably the earliest origins of the set; one previous version exists using normal violin with horns and has fewer movements. For this Brandenburg he uses a violin tuned a third higher for extra brilliance, the violin piccolo, and outdoor hunting horns, corni da caccia. The resultant scoring is rich and elaborate. The Adagio features solo oboe and violino piccolo; that then comes into its own in the third movement Allegro (which was reused in later secular cantatas). The fourth movement moves the piece from Italianate concerto form to a French suite of dances, with a Polonaise as one of the trios; each trio is characterfully scored.
Concerto No. 2 in F major (BWV 1047)
Based around a mixed ensemble of trumpet, recorder, violin and oboe, it’s been observed that this combination reflects the skills expected of a town musician of the time in brass, wind, and strings. But it caused continual problems of balance at a time when modern trumpets were over-loud; sometimes a clarinet was used, and there was a tradition of replacing the trumpet with a horn an octave lower, a solution supposedly approved by Bach and favoured by Thurston Dart. But the more soft-toned baroque trumpet can match the recorder well. The trumpet rests in the central movement, and the finale starts with a trumpet call that cleverly provides the final cadential phrase.
Concerto No. 3 in G major (BWV 1048)
This is perhaps the best known of the concertos and was among the first to be recorded because it simply requires nine hugely skilled string players – each player has their own part, and Bach seems to make the necessary agility increase as he plunges down to the violas and cellos with angular lines. The central two bars between the movements raise the question of whether Bach expected them to be played as they are, perhaps decorated with a flourish, or whether a slow movement should be imported; or perhaps he is once again showing off to the Margrave’s players by saying ‘and this is where we improvise’! The finale is totally direct and clear, a rushing 12/8 gigue of imitative lines.
Concerto No. 4 in G major (BWV 1049)
Again an unusual combination of solo violin with what Bach described as ‘fiauti d’echo’ – Thurston Dart tried to argue that these were high sopranino recorders, but in spite of their being virtuosically played by David Munrow and John Turner on Marriner’s recording of the Dart edition, it doesn’t really work
Title page of ‘Brandenburg Concertos’, c.1721 (pen and ink on paper). Bridgeman Images
(or as Flanders and Swann sang elsewhere of high fidelity, ‘it ought to please any passing bat’). Couldn’t the description just allude to the fact that the two recorders echo each other? A magnificent opening concerto movement with glorious violin figuration, and a serene central movement, leads to one of the best fun fugues Bach ever wrote, juddering to final pauses that pre-echo Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony!
Concerto No. 5 in D major (BWV 1050)
The arrival of the keyboard as a prominent solo instrument in a concerto is a signal moment with huge implications for the future. It is here complemented by violin and tranverse flute (another forward-looking instrument) and the keyboard emerges in full force with a cadenza-like section at the end of the first movement. An earlier version is extant in which the first movement has 180 bars compared with the later version’s 227 bars, so clearly Bach is demonstrating the importance of the instrument. The central movement’s Affettuoso is a gentle dotted-rhythm piece of chamber music for the three soloists, while the gigue-like finale finds a moment to feature the singing tone of the violas.
Concerto No. 6 in B flat major (BWV 1051)
Perhaps the most distinctive of this unusual concerto, this features instruments rarely given solo roles, two violas and two violas da gamba, bringing past and present string instruments together. There is possibly an echo of one of Bach’s earliest cantatas Gottes Zeit (BWV 106), with its sinfonia using two gambas. Here the canonic writing tumbles into action in the very first bar, the two instruments only a beat apart. He central movement is an Adagio ma non tanto with a plunging line for the two violas over a walking bass (the gambas ignored here) while the finale once again has a gigue-like movement with complex imitation before returning to unanimity at the close.
Just as Bach drew on his older music to compile this remarkable set of concertos, so too he reused some of the best music in his later work: there’s an exhilarating expansion of the first movement of the Third Concerto as the sinfonia to a church cantata, a jokey jazz-like reworking of part of the First Concerto in a secular cantata, and a complete reworking of the Fourth Concerto with solo harpsichord replacing the violin as part of the pieces he adapted for the concerts of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. He rarely wasted a good idea!
The manuscript, however, meanwhile lurked in the Margrave’s library and was somewhere among the two miscellaneous batches of 100 concertos and 77 concertos which were valued as 4 groschen each when disposed of on his death. Spitta wrote that they were ‘carelessly sold off among a lot of other instrumental music at a ridiculously low price’ – but in fact the manuscript was carefully cared for by Bach-admirer Johann Philipp Kirnberger who we can see signed it on the cover. It probably it went from him to Princess Anna Amalia’s library and hence to the Royal Library in Berlin*.
We are just beginning to understand the ways in which Bach’s legacy was preserved and explored, especially by connoisseurs in the Berlin circle of the harpsichordist Sara Levy who worked with Bach’s sons, before the famous revival of the St Matthew Passion by Mendelssohn. The Fifth Brandenburg was rehearsed by Carl Friedrich Zelter in 1808, and later the Fourth and Sixth; the Fifth was played in Frankfurt in 1835. The score was first published in 1850. The revival was necessarily slow because of the instrumental demands which ill-suited a conventional orchestra.
Early gramophone recordings by some including Wilhelm Furtwangler revived the Third and the Fifth (using piano), but it was not until Adolf Busch recorded the set in 1934 that the swell of modern recordings began, and the Brandenburgs became a calling-card for the emerging period-instrument movement. They were celebrated by everyone from the pioneering Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, to the British school of Trevor Pinnock, Christopher Hogwood and so many others. But one feature of performances – whether at Cöthen, for the Margave, or in present-day concert halls and recording studios – that is worth considering is whether these pieces ever had, or ever needed, a conductor. As in so many areas of music-making, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment takes the story of discovery further.
(*There is a story I have been unable to verify that the score had to be removed for safe keeping during the world war; the train that it was being transported on came under arial bombardment, the man carrying it had to escape into a forest with the score under his coat. This has the flavour of a novel. Yet another enigma!)
The Castle of Prince Kothen from “Topographia” by Matthaeus Merian Sr. 1650 (engraving) Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Kothen during the period 171 – 23 as Hofkapellmeister of Duke Leopold von Anhalt-Kothen. He wrote the Brandenburg Concertos and Das wohltemperierte Klavie here. Bridgeman Images.
Director’s Note
HUW DANIEL
For the OAE, the Brandenburg Concertos are a special opportunity for us to play together without a conductor or director. Some movements are literally chamber music movements (the second movements of Concertos No. 5 and No. 2, for example), and the bigger movements are written in a way that lets every voice get its say – perfect for the OAE! Listen out for the contribution of the 1st violin in the third movement of Concerto No. 1 when it suddenly takes over when the piccolo violin stops rather abruptly having seemingly run out of things to say, and the recurring scaleconversation of the 2nd violin and viola in the third movement of No. 4.
The music will be very familiar to all of us, so we might be able to draw on those past experiences for inspiration, but the particular combination of players this time will no doubt make us play in a certain way and bring something new to the surface. It should be possible to hear each individual voice on stage tonight, and it’s a good opportunity to enjoy some instruments you don’t often hear. The piccolo violin (a small violin tuned a minor 3rd higher than normal – the strings B flat, F, C, G perfect for playing a piece in F major) is perhaps the rarest instrument heard tonight, and I’m very lucky to be the one playing it. If you come to Bach, the Universe and Everything later this month, you might hear Maggie playing the same instrument in Cantata BWV 140!
AIn 1986, a group of inquisitive London musicians took a long hard look at that curious institution we call the Orchestra, and decided to start again from scratch. They began by throwing out the rulebook. Put a single conductor in charge? No way. Specialise in repertoire of a particular era? Too restricting. Perfect a work and then move on? Too lazy. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born.
nd as this distinctive ensemble playing on period-specific instruments began to get a foothold, it made a promise to itself. It vowed to keep questioning, adapting and inventing as long as it lived. Residencies at the Southbank Centre and the Glyndebourne Festival didn’t numb its experimentalist bent. A major record deal didn’t iron out its quirks. Instead, the OAE examined musical notes with ever more freedom and resolve.
In keeping with its values of always questioning, challenging and trailblazing, in September 2020, the OAE became the resident orchestra of Acland Burghley School, Camden. The residency – a first for a British orchestra – allows the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to live, work and play amongst the students of the school.
That creative thirst remains unquenched. The Night Shift series of informal performances are redefining concert formats. Its former home at London’s Kings Place has fostered further diversity of planning and music-making. The ensemble has formed the bedrock for some of Glyndebourne’s most groundbreaking recent productions.
Now nearly 40 years old, the OAE is part of our musical furniture. It has even graced the outstanding conducting talents of John Butt, Elder, Adam Fischer, Iván Fischer, Jurowski, Rattle and Schiff with a joint title of Principal Artist. But don’t ever think the ensemble has lost sight of its founding vow. Not all orchestras are the same. And there’s nothing quite like this one.
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THE WHOLE WORLD IS AN ENIGMA at the Southbank Centre
9 January
BAROQUEBUSTERS with Julia Bullock (soprano)
27 February
BEETHOVEN: HERO/REBEL with Maxim Emelyanychev (conductor)
OAE TOTS for 2–5 year olds with their parents or carers at the Southbank Centre
12 January PUZZLE TOTS
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Chamber music down a local pub
19 November, Shadwell The George Tavern
BACH,
THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING at Kings Place
Mission: to explore our place in the cosmos guided by the intergalactic genius of JS Bach. Each monthly event features one of Bach’s cantatas, and other choral and instrumental works, alongside a talk by an eminent astronomer.
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PATRONS OF THE PAST
Joanna Wyld explores how the composers in our season were supported by a cast of generous and often quirky patrons.
Few who have read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice could forget Mr Collins waxing lyrical about his patroness, Lady Catherine de Burgh. In music history, the dynamic between patrons and those they support is usually more nuanced, often resulting in real friendship. Even so, composers sometimes had to resort to similar tactics: JS Bach showed Mr Collinsesque levels of flattery in the dedication of his Brandenburg Concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in which he referred modestly to his own ‘little talents’. Barbara Strozzi, meanwhile, was determined to make a living for herself, and did so by dedicating compositions to patrons including Ferdinand II of Austria and Eleanor of Mantua.
Handel’s royal patrons made some elaborate requests: his Water Music was written for George I’s boat party on the Thames, while the Music for the Royal Fireworks was for George II’s display in Green Park. The music went well, the fireworks less so: some were rained on, some flew off, and others set fire to the stage.
Felix Mendelssohn was a favourite with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, writing vivid accounts of visiting them and their pet parrot: ‘It was a delightful day! Just as the Queen was going to sing she said: “The parrot must be taken out or he will scream louder than I can sing”’. Some of Beethoven’s patrons even knew each other; Count Razumovsky said of Prince Lobkowitz: ‘He played music from dusk to dawn and spent a fortune on musicians. Innumerable musicians gathered in his house, whom he treated regally.’
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Dreamchasing Young Producers
Now in its third year, the Dreamchasing Young Producers has evolved into an influential programme at the school, equipping young people with professional skillsets in project management, filmmaking, lighting, sound, set and costume design. The graduates from the first years now serve as tutormentors for new recruits and return regularly to support the OAE as valuable project support when life gets busy. The programme also supports the roll out of the T-level qualification in a new state of the art media centre at the school. This qualification, in Media, Broadcast and Production, is the equivalent of a conventional set of A levels, and prepares students for entry to work and higher
education in this important sector of the UK economy. The OAE is a proud corporate partner in this innovation.
You will see Dreamchasing Young Producers support front and backstage life at our Southbank Centre series, but this is the tip of the iceberg which, alongside routine training from OAE staff, players and guest experts, sees students from Year 7 onwards working on a range of challenging enterprises: a new podcast channel for the OAE, original film work for YouTube and Marquee TV, professional production values at school based events and new concept work with OAE partners for forthcoming seasons.
Clockwise from top left: In the audience at the Southbank Centre; filming at the Hex; filming at The Fairy Queen: Three Wishes at the Southbank Centre; preparing to film Breaking Bach; greeting patrons and distributing programmes at an OAE performance at the Southbank Centre.
Building Strong Foundations
How the OAE’s Ground Base programme seeks to create better outcomes for students with special educational needs (SEND)
Our Ground Base programme is an opportunity for students in Years 7 – 9 from Acland Burghley School’s BASE, an additionally resourced provision for autistic students and those with complex needs to work with composer Raph Clarkson.
Anna Rimington, Acland Burghley’s Director of Learning for Key Stage 5 and OAE Liaison, explains the school’s approach: “We are a mainstream comprehensive school with a very high number of students with Additional Educational Needs (AEN) and therefore inclusion is central to every strand of our practice.”
The idea for Ground Base came about through a discussion with Billy Pinches, Associate Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo), and the OAE’s Education Director, Cherry Forbes. Following an initial pilot of four sessions in the Base, it now runs as a monthly session.
The workshops are led by composer Raph Clarkson supported by a team of musicians from the OAE. This demonstrates how our partnership with Acland Burghley School is helping students to gain confidence through working together and exploring a range of music.
“The OAE’s programmes”, says Anna Rimington, “enable students with a range of complex needs to collaborate with their peers to make and perform music guided by players who bring deep experience of working with AEN students across the country in a range of different settings.”
Community Open Rehearsals
Dates have now been confirmed for our series of Community Open Rehearsals at Acland Burghley School in Tufnell Park throughout the 2024 / 25 season.
If you run a community group or know of someone who would benefit from attending our Community Open Rehearsals please get in touch with us on boxoffice@oae.co.uk or see our website for more information.
Future rehearsals will take place on:
Sunday 5 January Teatime Tots
Wednesday 8 January Baroquebusters with Julia Bullock
Tuesday 25 February Beethoven with Maxim Emelyanychev and Vilde Frang
Saturday 22 March Das Jahr
Wednesday 2 April St Matthew Passion with Jonathan Cohen
