each Brandenburg concerto, the concertino is made up of a different set of instruments: in No. 5, a flute, violin and harpsichord can be found, whereas in No. 2, the concertino consists of a Ânatural trumpet in FÊ, a recorder, a flute and a violin. Furthermore, the parts given to the concertino seem to alternate between being from a grosso and from a solo (a similar type of concerto but the concertino is replaced with the solo, one – usually virtuosic – player, commonly a violin: this genre is more commonly known to us thanks to composers like Mozart and Beethoven). For example, after the eight-bar ritornello of movement 1 in concerto No. 5, the concertino episode is introduced and the piece is obviously in the genre of concerto grosso. In bar 154, however, the ripieno drop out and the Âcembalo concertatoÊ plays a lengthy solo, a feature very uncharacteristic of the grosso, but very characteristic of the concerto solo. It seems Bach blended the technical, ostentatious passages introduced by Torelli and Cazzati, the influential Bolognese composers, in their trumpet concertos, with the previous, more traditional style of having a contrapuntal texture and one group of soloists standing out from the rest of the orchestra, the tutti . Further evidence of this can be found by looking at the harpsichord part, which clearly acts as a continuo part in some instances. For example, in bars 29-31, the violin plays the same music as the ripieno but as a solo instrument, it stands out from the rest of the orchestra, whereas the harpsichord has no major play in this section: it plays figured bass chords to strengthen the lower strings. grosso, the concertinoÊ s entries would be well-defined and obvious, with their episodic material clearly stated and the tutti respectfully dropping away. This is not the case in Brandenburg 5 movement 1. The first episodeÊs beginning is strong, although subtle, but after this the lines begin to blur: in bar 40 we again see the ritornello, that most exquisite theme of a sequential rise using semiquavers, but this time itÊs shorter, only lasting for two bars before being replaced by more episodic material. The In a traditional concerto
motif reappears for an even smaller amount of time than before in the second half of bar 44, and by now we are well into solo material with only elements of the ritornello theme thrown in. This solo playing with occasional interjection of bolstering and reinforcing by the tutti continues into bar 71. It is this kind of totality in BachÊs music which reflects his piety. The inclusion of all the main European styles, the choice of seemingly incongruous instruments for the concertino and the departure from the traditional concerto grosso are all references (even if they are unconscious)to the omnipresent nature of God. A common technique for concertos in the Baroque era was fortspinnung, which literally means Âspinning outÊ. It is a method of extending a motif, making it last longer to keep the music going (one can therefore see why it would be desirable to Bach). It is a structure composed of three parts: the vordersatz, fortspinnung and epilog. The vordersatz is the exposition of the motif, the presentation of that material. In the 1 st movement of Brandenburg 5, the vordersatz lasts for eight bars from the beginning, and is then taken over by the concertino Ês first episode. The second part of this structure is the fortspinnung itself, the spinning out, the prolonging of the vordersatz. This is achieved by Âsequences, intervallic changes or simple repetitionsÊ. Commonly, but not always, the fortspinnung would be transposed up a fifth (i.e. the dominant relative to the key of the vordersatz material), as it is in bar 29, after more episodic material. It does drop out for three bars at bar 32, but this is only so the concertino can play a small linking passage to the rest of the fortspinnung, which ends in bar 45, giving way to yet another solo passage. The epilog is the final part, a cadential passage where the original material used in the vordersatz returns and is closed off and ended. If the material in the epilog was not identical to that of the fortspinnung, it was certainly very similar, but with a view to ending the piece. In this movement, the epilog begins at bar 219, and obviously goes on until the end of the piece, rounding off with a very common
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