Johann Sebastian Bach - booksnow.scholarsportal.info

146 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH.is not thematic but episodic.Bach often employs a fugue forthe last movement, especially where the clavier appears asa solo instrument ; this is the case, for instance, in the fifthBrandenburg concerto, in the concerto in A minor forclavier, violin, and flute, and also in the fourth Brandenburgconcerto, the violin part of which was re-arranged by Bachfor the clavier. There, and in the C major concerto, hesucceeded in a most masterly way in suiting the form tothe "character of the movement, by the style of inventionand treatment, especially by 'means of longer episodes, oreven interludes, quite in the free style ; and he was ledto introduce them by the style of the harpsichord and theorgan, which always influenced his imagination.^^° Althoughthe fugal style would appear to afford but little temptationfor anything of the kind. Bach contrives in this movementto employ the two claviers in such a manner as to makethem appear as two factors of equal importance. By thismeans, the working-out of the fugues, even putting asidethe interludes, is characteristic and especially interesting.The two allegro movements, and, in no less a degree, thedelicately woven and melancholy quatuor which serves as anAdagio, reveal a fresh though controlled inventiveness, a feelingof strict moderation, which, when united to the highestperfectionof form—for the work corresponds absolutely tothe ideal of the concerto—make the work a classic model.^''^The_twa.GQnc.ertos for three claviers are constructed uponthe same principles. The tutti (if, indeed, this name ought250 See Vol. I., p. 422.^1 Rust (B.-G., XXI., 2 pp. 6—8) holds, on the authority of an older copj'which contains only the first movement, and that without orchestral accompaniment,that the first movement was written as a separate work, and thatthe accompaniment was not added till afterwards. This cannot be gatheredfrom the style of the accompaniment, for I cannot see that of the first movementto be difterent from that of the last, except in so far as is required by thedifi'erent form of the two movements. It is not organically necessary either inone movement or the other; it has been already noticed by Forkel (p. 58) thatthe concerto could very well dispense with the accompaniment of the strings,and that it has a quite good effect without it. It may have even been playedin this way at an earlier date. Rust cleverly inferred that Bach probably madeno full score of the concerto, but may have written the parts for the stringedinstruments separately