Baroque Period

Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra

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The Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor, RV 531 is one of Antonio Vivaldi’s most intensely dramatic and convention-defying works. Out of the composer’s nearly 500 surviving concerti (30 of which feature the cello), it is the only “double” concerto for the instrument. The first movement begins not with the standard tutti ritornello but with the two solo instruments taking center stage with a vigorous conversation in thirds. Immediately, we are …

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Bach’s “Canon a 2 Cancrizans” from “The Musical Offering”: A Divine Puzzle

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The canon, which features one or more imitations of the same melodic line performed at varying intervals over a given duration, is one of music’s most intriguing contrapuntal devices. In The Musical Offering, BWV 1079, J.S. Bach takes this technique a step further with the canon cancrizans, or “crab canon.” Here, the melodic line can be played as written, and also in reverse, in a way similar to a crab crawling backwards. …

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Purcell’s Trio Sonata in G Minor, Z 807: A Monumental Chaconne

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Henry Purcell (1659-1695), the most significant English composer of the Baroque period, left behind dramatic works such as Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen, as well as sacred music and instrumental fantasias. Equally rich, yet perhaps less well known, are Purcell’s Trio Sonatas. Composed around 1680, these include the Twelve Sonatas in Three Parts (Z 790-801) and the Ten Sonatas in Four Parts (Z 802-811). The second collection was published posthumously in 1697 at a time when …

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Bach’s Triple Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1044: The Art of Recycling

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J.S. Bach constructed the Concerto for Flute, Violin, and Harpsichord, BWV 1044 out of used parts. The outer movements were adapted from the Prelude and Fugue in A minor for solo harpsichord, BWV 894. The second movement was based on the Adagio e dolce from the Trio Sonata for Organ in D minor, BWV 527. It is likely that these two works developed from early pieces by Bach that have been lost. All of …

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Brahms’ Handel Variations, Op. 24: A Monument Built on Baroque Foundations

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George Frideric Handel’s Suite in B-flat Major, HWV 434, published in 1733 as part of a collection of keyboard works entitled Suites de Pièces, concludes with an Aria con variazioni in which five ebullient variations spin out of a sunny galant theme: This endearing music provided the seed for Johannes Brahms’ monumental Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, composed nearly 130 years later in 1861. Here, the original theme is followed by 25 adventurous …

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Handel’s “Haec est Regina Virginum,” Anne Sofie von Otter

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In the years before his arrival in London, the young George Frideric Handel was based in Italy. Settling in Rome, Handel, a native of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, composed cantatas and oratorios for the city’s most wealthy and powerful Cardinals. Additionally, commissions poured in from Florence, Venice, and Naples. It was during this time that Handel composed Haec est Regina virginum, HWV 235 (“Behold the Queen of Virgins”). The antiphon may have been written …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 552: An Expression of the Trinity

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In 1739, J.S. Bach published the Clavier-Übung III, a monumental collection of liturgical organ works which is sometimes called the German Organ Mass. The compilation begins and ends with two mighty musical pillars which have been catalogued as the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 552. The latter has been nicknamed the “St. Anne” Fugue because its subject is strikingly similar to William Croft’s English hymn of the same name. The Clavier-Übung III is filled with …

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