Concerto for Two Violins (Bach)

The Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, also known as the Double Violin Concerto, is a
violin concerto of the Late Baroque era, which Johann Sebastian Bach composed around 1730. It is
one of the composer's most successful works.

Bach composed his Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, around 1730, as part of a
concert series he ran as the Director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.

The concerto is characterized by a subtle yet expressive relationship between the violins throughout
the work. In addition to the two soloists, the concerto is scored for strings (first violin, second violin
and viola parts) and basso continuo.[3] The musical structure of this piece uses fugal imitation and
much counterpoint.[7]

The concerto comprises three movements:

Vivace

Largo ma non tanto

Allegro

Performance time of the concerto ranges from less than 13 minutes to over 18 minutes.

Around 1736–1737 Bach arranged the concerto for two harpsichords, transposed into C minor, BWV
1062.[10]

1734–1738 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach performed the concerto in Frankfurt an der Oder.[3] After his
father's death in 1750, Carl Philipp Emanuel inherited some of the original performance parts, likely
doubles, of the concerto (surviving: parts for soloists and continuo), and likely also the composer's
autograph score (lost).[11][12] The extant original parts were later owned by Georg Poelchau [de],
and were added to the Royal Library at Berlin (later converted to the Berlin State Library) in the
1840s.[12] After the Second World War they were lost for several decades, eventually resurfacing in
Poland.[12][13]

Manuscript copies of (parts of) the concerto were produced around 1730–1740,[14] in 1760,[15]
around 1760,[16] around 1760–1789,[17] and in the early 19th century.[18] The concerto was first
published in 1852, by Edition Peters, edited by Siegfried Dehn.[19] In the first volume of his Bach
biography (1873), Philipp Spitta describes the concerto as a product of the composer's Köthen period
(1717–1723).[20][21] After describing Bach's other extant violin concertos, those in E major (BWV
1042) and A minor (BWV 1041), he adds:[22][23]
Dem D moll-Concert ist unstreitig der höchste Werth eigen und in dieser Eigenschaft findet es auch
unter der heutigen musikalischen Welt schon eine erfreuliche Beachtung. Zwei Soloviolinen sind hier
herangezogen, doch kann man nicht wohl von einem Doppelconcerte reden, da die beiden Geigen
weniger unter sich, als vereinigt gegen den Instrumentalchor concertiren. Eine jede ist natürlich mit
der Selbständigkeit behandelt, die bei dem Bachschen Stile ohne weiteres vorausgesetzt wird. Im
Mittelsatze, einer wahren Perle an edlem, innigem Gesange, verhält sich das Orchester fast nur
accompagnirend, wie es bei den Concertadagios ja das Gewöhnliche war.

The D minor concerto is without doubt the finest of the set, and is held in due esteem by the musical
world of the present day. Two solo violins are here employed, but it is not, strictly speaking, a double
concerto, for the two violins play not so much against one another, as both together against the
whole band. Each is treated with the independence that is a matter of course in Bach's style. In the
middle movement, a very pearl of noble and expressive melody, the orchestra is used only as an
accompaniment, as was usual in the adagios of concertos.

—Philipp Spitta[22] —translation (after Bell/Fuller Maitland)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Two_Violins_(Bach)