Double Keyboard Concerto No. 2 in C Major

Among Bach’s keyboard concertos, BWV 1061 is that most preciously unique of works: an original composition rather than one reheated from a pre-existing score. It can be traced back to 1732-33 and a manuscript with corrections in Bach’s own hand. But it’s a singular work in several respects. Rarely have two soloists proved so self-sufficient. The string writing is conspicuously sparing in the outer movements and absent completely from the thoughtful A minor slow movement, which allows for a meeting of minds unencumbered by orchestral distractions. Were the string parts added later—perhaps by one of Bach’s sons—to transform an ebullient duo for domestic consumption into a concerto to tickle public ears? The two harpsichords are involved from the off and are front and centre during the first movement, relegating the strings to little more than punctuation rather than ongoing involvement. And it’s quite some time before the finale allows them a slice of the action. Somewhat forbiddingly marked “Fuga”, there’s nonetheless nothing dry or academic about a movement fired up with a boundless energy rich in contrapuntal vivacity. About J.S. Bach's Keyboard Concertos The keyboard concerto arrived late in the Baroque. Its two pioneers—Bach and Handel—took up the form independently, nearly simultaneously and almost accidentally. Bach first experimented in his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and during the 1730s he went on to compose 13 concertos for one, two, three and four harpsichords (BWV 1052-65), probably for his student-based music society, which gave concerts at Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig. Bach didn’t so much compose these concertos as arrange them, taking earlier concertos for the violin and oboe and reworking them for the harpsichord. Bach himself may have played his seven solo concertos, while contemporary accounts tell us that the multiple harpsichord concertos relied on his elder sons and pupils as soloists.