Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor

In his Violin Concerto No. 1, Bach took the fashionable Italian concerto model and enriched it with textural sophistication and adventurous harmonies—the vivacious first and final movements in particular show how Vivaldian vivacity can be married with seriousness of purpose. It may have been written during Bach’s spell in the employ of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen (1717-23) when orchestral and chamber music was at the top of his agenda; but equally the concerto possibly postdates Bach’s appointment (in 1729) to direct the congenial Friday night sessions of Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum, when music-making took place in the informality of Zimmermann’s coffee house in Katharinenstrasse. A set of parts survive, compiled around 1730, and the concerto continued to circulate long after Bach’s death—Mendelssohn asked his sister Fanny to source Berlin copies for a projected performance at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus as part of his early music series. Rhythmically up on tiptoes, determinedly robust and energised by leaping motifs, the opening movement indulges invigorating banter between soloist and orchestra, interleaved with more confiding episodes. The gigue-like finale is even more extrovert, accruing ever-increasing soloistic virtuosity culminating in some sparkling rapid alternation between open and stopped strings. In between sits a C major “Andante” whose repeating bassline establishes the gravitas over which soars a solo line suffused with supple soulfulness.