On the afternoon of December 15, 1832, three young pianists of no more than twenty-two years took the stage at the Paris Conservatory. They were the Hungarian Franz Liszt, his friend Frédérik Chopin, who had just arrived from Warsaw, and the German pianist Ferdinand Hiller. The program included, along with music by various composers, the Concerto in D minor for strings and three harpsichords, composed nearly a hundred years ago by Johann Sebastian Bach. After his death in 1750, Bach had fallen into near oblivion and his reputation as a composer openly declined, before the emergence of a new style, classicism. The homage of the three pianists thus joined the admiration previously professed by Mozart and later Beethoven who had no doubt to point out Bach as "the true father of harmony".
The new times - the mismatch
The fact is that in the last two decades of the Baroque master's life, tastes had gradually begun to change, and Johann Sebastian, true to himself, had not known how to suited to or had not wanted to. According to Anna Magdalena Bach, his second wife, once heard him say that "since I write for my own pleasure, I cannot get angry because my art does not appeal to everyone". But this attitude caused him some troubles. Around the same period of composition of the concerto for three harpsichords, a close relative – his cousin and also a musician – dedicated only 39 lines to him in a monumental dictionary of music that he was making at that time.
"Old Bach"
None of his contemporaries could have been unaware that Bach was a genius, but in his later years the general judgment was that he was a bit "old fashioned". He was a genius but from the past. A question that was not difficult for him to verify by observing how the public began to prefer the works of his musical sons over his own.
In 1747, three years before his death, the maestro was invited to Berlin by Frederick of Prussia. The sovereign informed his courtiers of the arrival of the master with the following phrase: "Gentlemen, extraordinary news: old Bach has just arrived in Berlin." The singular announcement clearly shows what, enthusiasm aside, Bach was in those years even for a great admirer like Frederick the Great: old Bach.
That is why, almost a hundred years later, Liszt, Chopin and Hiller rush to pay homage to him.
Concerto for three harpsichord, strings and continuo, in D minor, BWV 1063
Old Bach would compose concertos for one, two, three and four keyboards. Scholars agree in dating the composition of this one, one of the two concertos for three harpsichords, before 1733. The work is supposed to be written for the exercise of Bach's many children to assist their formation, and of course, thus receiving their cooperation at frequent family evenings. It is also not excluded that the oldest sons, Wilhelm Friedrich or Carl Philipp Emanuel, have even taken part in its composition.
The work is in three movements:
- Allegro
- Alla Siciliana (4:57)
- Allegro (8:51 atacca)
Netherlands Bach Society with the soloists Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Siebe Henstra, and Menno van Delft,
