fortspinnung structure. Abraham Veinus, a music author, thought that the Brandenburg concertos were Âthe exemplification of Bach's creative thinking, comprising the full range of his thought, variety of instrumentation and inner structureÊ. Indeed, there is a strong case for saying that these concertos are the most important surviving works of Bach, and they include so much of what was available to him at the time of writing them. He was certainly a very ecclectic musician, and this may have been partly due to his habit of honing if compositional skills by copying out the scores of other composers. This inclusion of existing material in his musical education would have exposed Bach to the popular techniques and styles of his day, and would greatly influence his composing techniques later in life (for example his frequent use of Vivaldian concerto structures or his combination of BuxtehudeÊs stylus phantasticus 3 with his own broad and grandiose polyphony). It is hard, however, to account for every facet of the totality and universal nature of the Brandenburg concertos (and much of the restof BachÊs music for that matter) unless they are looked at from a theological perspective, emphasizing my earlier point that the manner in which Bach adds so many different things to his music is a reflection of God: all-inclusive, eternal and omnipresent. It can be said that BachÊs music contains no emotional content, and is purely dazzling mathematical technique, but this simply cannot be true: the entire oeuvre represents a lifelong attempt to contribute to something greater than the writer, an attempt to be devoted to a significant cause. The profundity of this surely overcomes the superficiality of analysing the technical features alone.
cadence, the 6-4 progression. In the syntax of this structure lies a restriction on the length of the piece using it i.e. once the epilog is started, the piece is coming to an end. This idea must have rankled slightly with Bach, because in order to escape these restrictions, he simply loops the vordersatz and fortspinnung , completing the latter then returning to the former until he gets bored and brings the music to an end with the third and final passage. Evidence of this lies in the modulation to A major for the beginning of the fortspinnung that I mentioned earlier: the second passage of this structure seems to come at bar 19, with a forte re-entry from the ripieno, but this is merely a brief return of the ritornello material, linking two solo episodes together. After the authentic fortspinnung, another vordersatz is seen at bar 56, and at bar 61, a sort of combination between a solo episode and a fortspinnung comes into play, stringing out the ritornello and allowing the concertino to dominate the ensemble. Once again, Bach has mixed up and altered extant forms and structures to extend his music, and therefore his worship. In conclusion I would say the following: whether it was intentional or not, Bach put his works together from many different components (which are not perhaps seen together often) and jumbled up normal structures and forms to make the actual music last longer for the sole purpose of pleasing, reflecting and worshipping God. Those ÂcomponentsÊ I refer to are the combination of Italian, English, French and German styles in the creation of his Brandenburg concertos, along with the merging of the genres of concerto grosso and concerto solo. The structures and forms are of course his take on ritornello form and the
3 A light, virtuosic kind of counterpoint, driven towards unpredctable rubato and sometimes described as an emphasis on the musically bizarre.
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