Noam D. Elkies: Brandenburg Concerto No.7

Composer's program notes


I thank Scott Yoo for urging me to dare compose a seventh Brandenburg
concerto for this Metamorphosen concert.  As if this task were not
daunting enough, the program would also include one of the six concerti
that Bach himself chose for the Margrave of Brandenburg.
It is of course an act of chutzpah, some would say almost heresy,
to challenge Bach so explicitly on his own turf.
But then such a challenge is implicit in any new composition:
the classical canon is already so crowded with masterpieces
that a newcomer must at least bear comparison with the best
of Bach and Brahms to stand a chance.  At any rate, I reject
the notion that it somehow musically incorrect for me to write
serious music in a Baroque idiom.  Bach's idiom will remain
a native language for us as long as we continue to learn
and perform his suites, preludes and fugues, and cantatas.
Bach's music, always a fertile source of wonder and inspiration,
can still call forth new music in a similar vein; ultimately
it should not matter whether a piece was composed in 2003 or 1717,
so long as it delights, moves, or astounds on its own terms.

What can these terms be for a new ``Brandenburg concerto''?
No two of Bach's Brandenburgs sound alike: each has its individual,
often boundary-straining, features.  These include choices of
orchestration (such as stratospheric trumpet in the second concerto,
a single violin part in the fifth, no violins but four violas in the sixth,
three of each in the third); of size and proportion (from the two-chord
middle movement of the third concerto, to the extended harpsichord
cadenza in the fifth, to the 427-bar first movement of today's fourth);
and of structure (from minuets, gigues, and a polonaise to elaborate
sonata and fugal forms).  Hence a credible seventh Brandenburg concerto
cannot merely interpolate among Bach's six; it must imaginatively
extrapolate beyond them.

For the orchestration, my scope was limited -- as was Bach's
-- by the available performers, here the strings, keyboard,
and two flute players of Bach's fourth.  I thus have one
of the flautists play piccolo for most of the piece,
offer individual and sectional solos to every part
including the string bass, and freely use the full
modern ranges of these instruments.  Likewise the choices
of characters, chromaticism, and even key (C major) and meter
(two movements in 9/8) all fit within or near Bach's idiom
but do not copy any of the Brandenburgs, nor (excepting of course
the key and time signatures) any other Bach works known to me.  

A Bach expert would not be fooled into attributing this piece to Bach.
But this was not my intent.  It was enough of a challenge to write
a new composition that any Bach lover could experience with something
like the adventure and joy that a newly discovered Bach concerto
would surely elicit.

---

The opening movement begins in familiar Concerto Grosso fashion:
a unison ``ritornello'' (recurring tune) for the strings,
then solo passagework punctuated by full or partial reprises
of the ritornello.  As the movement progresses through the usual
signposts of the form, this structure expands to accommodate
syncopations and unusual keys suggested by the ritornello.
The ritornello moves through various configurations and instruments,
finally revealing its purpose in the concluding reprise.

The extended middle movement diverges most clearly from the Brandenburg
models to explore another aspect of Bach's music: strict counterpoint
in the service of musical expression.  Here pairs of solo instruments
or sections of the orchestra spin out lyrical canons at varying intervals
(thus paying homage to Bach's Goldberg Variations, as well as Bartok's
own Concerto for Orchestra), alternating with a broad theme in dotted
eighth-notes.  Each pair takes us to a more distant key, and only after
several increasingly charged crises does our journey bring us
home to A minor.

The final movement returns closer to familiar Brandenburg territory:
a dance-like fast movement in rounded binary form.  Still
some surprises remain, as well as echoes of the melodies
and hemiolas of the middle movement.