Baroque Period

Bach’s Unopened Résumé: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2

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Right now, somewhere in the vast, interstellar expanse beyond the edge of our solar system, NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe, launched on September 5, 1977, continues to wander into the eternity of deep space. Onboard the small, brave craft is a Golden Record documenting the fragile existence of humanity on our pale blue dot in the cosmic sea. The opening musical track on the Golden Record is the first movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, performed by Karl Richter and the Munich …

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New Release: “Hilary Hahn Plays Bach”

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Violinist Hilary Hahn released her first solo Bach album more than twenty years ago as a teenager. Now, she has returned to this music with a newly-released recording featuring Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor, Partita No. 1 in B minor, and Sonata No. 2 in A minor. Completed nearly 300 years ago, this sublime collection of Baroque dances stands at the center of the violin repertoire. Hahn’s conception of this music moves away …

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Bach’s Unopened Résumé: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1

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They’ve been called, “the most complex and artistically successful failed job application in recorded history.” 300 years after their composition, J.S. Bach’s six monumental “Brandenburg” Concertos are regarded as some of the greatest and most groundbreaking works of the Baroque period. But surprisingly, they came about as a result of seemingly practical, even mundane concerns. Around 1721, Bach was worrying about his job security. The new wife of his patron, Prince Leopold of Anthalt-Cöthen, was …

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Exploring the Prolation Canon

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There is an interesting passage about four and a half minutes into the first movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 which may have caught your ear if you dropped by for Wednesday’s post: Did you hear that wandering, chromatic line which begins in the violins? Two additional lower string voices enter in succession with the same line at consecutively slower rates of speed. For a moment, before the episode is cut off by the …

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New Release: Rachel Barton Pine and Jory Vinikour Play Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord

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Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour have released a new album featuring J.S. Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019. This marks the duo’s first recording collaboration. Barton Pine uses a baroque bow and plays a 1770 Nicola Gagliano violin which is in its “original, unaltered condition.” Also included on the album is the Cantabile, BWV 1019a which Bach originally wrote for the Sonata, BWV 1019. Likely composed between 1717 and 1723 during Bach’s Köthen period, these …

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The Music of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”

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Music was at the heart of the long-running PBS children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I was reminded of this last week as I watched the timely new documentary film, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? The film opens with a youthful Fred Rogers, seated at the piano, relating far-flung harmonic modulations to difficult adjustments in children’s lives. Rogers, a talented pianist, wrote all of the show’s songs. Dialogue between characters in the “Neighborhood of Make-believe” …

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A Vivaldi Snapshot

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Let’s finish the week with a brief but alluring musical snapshot. This is the beautiful second movement (Andante) from Vivaldi’s Concerto for Strings in F Major, RV 136, completed around 1730. It’s an excerpt from Vivaldi: Arie ritrovate, a 2008 album I featured in last Friday’s post. Violinist Stefano Montanari joins the Ravenna-based baroque orchestra, Accademia Bizantina, led by Ottavio Dantone. I love the way this music draws us in with a sense of majestic, flowing, inevitability. Its roving bass line …

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