The Bloomingdale Chamber Orchestra has been rehearsing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and we are having a tough time with it. Modern orchestras don’t do as much Bach as they do other composers. Bach’s music wasn’t really written for the modern orchestra. It doesn’t quite fit. The Fifth Brandenburg, for example, has no second violin part.
What it does have is a lot of notes. In Baroque music, the flow of a piece is governed by the musical line. A line is a self-propelled musical entity, usually based on one or two short musical segments called motives which are transformed during the course of the piece. Every line has its own kinetic energy which ebbs and flows, creating the expressive potential of the line. The interaction of two or more lines is what creates the tension and release that both propel the piece forward and which lead to the overall drama in a piece of Baroque music. The interaction creates a kind of polarity—equal and opposite forces trying to unite. The whole process is called fortspinnung in German—spinning forth. Its part of what makes Baroque music seem so restless and energetic. Bach represents the epitome of this kind of Baroque music and the Brandenburg concerti represent some of his very best secular instrumental compositions.
What Bach’s music doesn’t have much of are rests, which is one of the reasons it’s so challenging. While lines are built of two or three simple motives, “development” consists mostly of transforming those motives--reshaping them, altering them with accidentals, moving them to new keys, playing them upside down, playing them backward, among other things. It means players need to be aware of the notes every moment they are playing, while at the same time musically shaping the line and being aware of how the line interacts with the other performers.
A few years ago, I was given a book titled Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. I am not going to pretend I understood much of that book, but what I loved about it was the idea that three magnificent creative thinkers in mathematics, art, and music could be linked through an understanding of thinking and awareness. I love the idea that Bach’s musical lines have energy contained within them, just the the way the sweeping lines of a sculptor like Bernini contain energy, and those lines can uplift those who experience them.
For the performer, playing Bach is one of music’s extreme sports and one of music’s most completely satisfying experiences. After you have finished performing the piece, you know you have done something special.
Lawrence Davis
Lawrence Davis
