Das Gute Musik: Two Weeks with Bach's Brandenburg concertos

I have Looney Tunes to thank for a good many things in my life. From an young age, they instilled a deep love of slapstick, goofy voices, and animation; also Bugs Bunny taught me that dressing up as a woman and kissing people full on the mouth can get you out of a lot of scrapes. But (perhaps) most importantly Looney Tunes also introduced me to A LOT of classical music as they used it to score many cartoons ('What's Opera, Doc?' immediately comes to mind) and it got me interested in music from that young age.  For as long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed listening to it to classical music. For eight years, through middle school and high school, I played French Horn in our school band (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and that furthered my appreciation of the vast musical catch-all that is "classical music." But as far as a working understanding of the withertos and whyfors of classical music, its history, progression, highs, and lows; I am lacking. I've owned numerous 'Best Classical Music of All-Time!' discs over the years which seem to always contain the same twelve pieces of music, but up to this point I've never really deepened my knowledge in any real way. So yet again, this blog has provided (thanks to another reader recommendation) a perfect opportunity to broaden my classical music horizons by spending almost two weeks the Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg concertos.

To further flesh out my couple weeks of listening to Bach, I did a bit of background reading on classical music history, as well as the history of the Brandenburg concertos themselves. Composed in 1721, if not before, these 6 concertos were essentially Bach's application of artistic employment to Christian Ludwig, who was the commander of Brandenburg, Germany at the time. Commander Ludwig was a big lover of the arts and Bach was hoping to gain a benefactor and patron through the composition and gifting of these 6 concertos. Unfortunately for Bach, his application was denied, perhaps due to Ludwig's lack of money; but fortunately for us we got these amazing compositions out of the deal. The Brandenburg concertos came pretty early on in Bach's composing career but are still considered by many who know what they are talking about to be a high-water mark in Baroque period music. They were a great leap forward in compositional complexity and they set the standard for decades to come. The Baroque period of Western classical music sits on the earlier end of the timeline from about 1600-1730, while the Classic period which featured heavy-hitters like Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn ran from about 1730-1820. Bach's body of work, Brandenburg concertos included, broke musical boundaries and built many a foundation that these later composers would come to build upon just as Bach built upon the music of the Renaissance period (1400-1600) that came before him. But that's enough of that.

Now that we have that bit of history out of the way, we can get onto my thoughts about the concertos. As with my John Coltrane review a few weeks ago, I feel extremely unqualified in pronouncing judgment on these compositions that have been generally acknowledged to be great and awesome for the past 290 years. My thoughts are simply my thoughts and my opinions simply my opinions; nothing more, nothing less. Aside from being extremely historically important in the development of Western classical music, the concertos themselves are just downright beautiful pieces of music from a true musical genius that kept me engaged over the course of my two weeks of listening. Extremely stately and grand, each of these concertos sees Bach interweaving melodies and instruments with expert flair. Featuring relatively small ensemble of 9-13 musicians on strings, harpsichord, cornet, oboe, and flute, the Brandenburg concertos impressed me as the height of elegance and beauty; simultaneously complex and inviting. Layers and layers exist within each of these pieces and I feel that I could have spent another two weeks unpacking them piece by piece; a lot of stuff is jam packed in this two hours of music. Each concerto follows a similar progression, most open with a bang (more technically, an Allegro section) that sets forth the melody and grabs the listener's attention followed by a slower more somber movement (Adagio) and concludes with another quick section (usually Allegro or Presto). In this way each concerto is its own musical journey to go on, and I have throughly enjoyed my journeys with them this week.

Among the concertos, I did develop favorites; the first being Concerto 1 which is the longest of the concertos with 5 movements instead of the 3 that all the others posses. This first concerto captures the full grandeur of Bach's compositional prowess with rousing fanfares, pensive oboe lead interludes and stately marches; Bach puts it all on display in this first concerto. The soaring trumpet of Concerto 2 and its interplay with the flutes and strings throughout also make it another high-point that I looked forward to with each listen. Bach has a wonderful way of seamlessly passing the melody from one instrument to the next  - sometimes with each player holding it for only measures at a time. This constant interplay of instruments really keeps each piece melodically interesting. My final stand-out would be the 4th Concerto which this time gives the flute and recorder center stage with a wonderfully playful and floating melody. Again Bach crafts an expertly paced and moving piece that never slags or loses my attention in its 16 minutes.

Concerto 5 presents the only time in my listening that my mind would tend to drift and maybe, just maybe get a tad bored. The piece starts out strongly enough with its rousing opening strings and flute melody and the harpsichord is given its moment in the sun but towards the end of the concerto, the player has an extended harpsichord solo that goes on just a tad too long for my tastes. The harpsichord player gets an opportunity to show off their musical chops and they are very impressive but, for me, it drags on without the support of the rest of the ensemble. The ensemble and their interplay is perhaps the greatest part of these concertos and during this harpsichord solo on this piece I miss that.

The Brandenburg concertos have been a huge education for me over the past two weeks, both in my listening and in the research and reading that I did. It also made me realize that there is so much more untapped music I have yet to discover in the classical arena and Bach and his concertos have made me extremely excited to seek them out. If you have an interest at all in classical music, I wholeheartedly recommend spending some time with the beautiful and majestic music that Bach has crafted in his Brandenburg concertos. It turns out that there is a vast amount more to this music than merely a fitting backdrop for Looney Tunes.

The Breakdown:

Stand-Outs: Concerto 1, Concerto 2, Concerto 4

Let-Downs: Concerto 5

Score: 9.5/10

Up Next: We are flashing forward 261 years to 1982 to spend sometime with a band that has been unfortunately written off as a one-hit wonder here in the US. I am going to be spending the week with Dexys Midnight Runners and their '82 album 'Too-Rye-Ay' to see if goodies await beyond the known splendor of Come On Eileen.