In 1735, the year of publication of his Italian Concerto, Johann Sebastián Bach was fifty years old and had been living in full happiness for fourteen years with his second wife, Anna Magdalena, who at the time was 34. The large family (that year was born Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son of Bach, and who will be a composer of the first order) was settled since 1723 in Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian was working as the Kantor (a position of lower category than that of maestro di capella) of the Saint Thomas church.
The tasks he had to fulfil there were: teaching music, Latin, and Luther's catechism to the students of the Tomasschulle, besides composing music and conducting it in Saint Thomas and Saint Nicholas churches. The family would live with ease because –like the rest of the teachers– they had free accommodation in the Tomasschulle and, as will be usual in his professional life, Bach was very well paid.
The Italian Concerto is the first part of his second keyboard exercise book, Klavierübung II. The notebook is entitled: "Second part of the practice of the harpsichord, consisting of a concert according to Italian taste and an overture according to the French way, for a harpsichord of two manual keyboards, prepared to recreate the spirit of the fans, by JS Bach...". The "Italian way" of the concert refers, according to scholars, to the alternation of playing piano and forte on the two keyboards.
The concerto is in three brief movements. We are listening to the first one, in the rendering by the pianist Umi Garret, who at the time of this performance was seven years old. The video ends inviting us to listen to the second movement, where Umi needs just two or three bars to show great musicality. Thanks to Umi and a long series of pianists under the age of eight, the parents who, once proud, were harassing us with the story that their six-year-old son "learned to play 'Jingle Bells' on his keyboard for Christmas", have been eradicated forever from the face of the earth.
The recently deceased pianist Jacques Loussier, a French musician who knew how to combine jazz with baroque music, gives us the following jazz version of the Italian Concerto of JS Bach, in a performance from the year 1988. Loussier, in his last recordings with his jazz group Play Bach Trio, brought in music from Debussy, Satie, Ravel, Chopin and even Mozart.
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