EIF: The Brandenburg Concertos

Queen’s Hall – 27/08/22

Boisterous Bach

As the last of this year’s morning concerts was not recorded by the BBC, there was no time limit applied, and so we got to hear all six Brandenburg Concertos in one concert, a special treat. 

It was special for several reasons – Richard Egarr is such a vivacious character, and a born showman, with his sparkling introductions and effervescent harpsichord playing; he had assembled a fantastic group of individual specialists for his band; the Queen’s Hall was packed, and these concertos are high points of our civilisation.

As Richard pointed out, they were very nearly lost to history. In 1721 Bach sent them to the Margrave of Brandenburg from Cőthen where he was working at the time, as a sort of CV for a job. The Margrave never acknowledged receipt and shoved them in his library, where they gathered dust until sold in 1734. They were found in the archives of Brandenburg in 1849 and published the following year.

Yet, taken as a group, they are some of the most wonderful scores ever written, and a marvellous example of Bach’s genius.

They were played today in the order Richard Egarr had selected, and each one highlighted a particular instrument or combination thereof. In the first concerto, there were initial problems of balance, since natural horns are intrinsically louder than, for example, a violino piccolo, but this settled down over the course of the concert, and so by the time the recorder was playing with the trumpet in Number 2 our ears and their playing had adjusted.

Each concerto is so different from the next that it is almost impossible to choose favourites and highlights, but I’ll give it a go.

Number 6 was, in Richard’s words, a sort of fight between old and new instruments, largely played on lower strings, and the rollicking finale was absolutely fabulous. David Blackadder in Number 2 played his baroque trumpet like a god, its unbelievably high tessitura phenomenal. As with all concerts on original instruments, perfection is hard to achieve, except on record, but the standard of playing of this multinational ensemble was superb. Bojan Čičić, who we had heard in Wednesday’s concert, excelled on violino piccolo, viola and violin, an astonishing feat since each instrument has totally different pitch and feel. Number 3 featured three groups of three instruments, plus harpsichord and bass, which produced an extraordinary depth of string sound. Number 5 puts the harpsichord in the spotlight, and Richard Egarr’s playing was sensational. I have been lucky in my singing career to work with two of the finest harpsichord players of our generation, Trevor Pinnock and John Butt, and I can safely add Richard Egarr to that roll call of fame, even if his choice of shirts is idiosyncratic, red on Wednesday, green today! Finally, the last concerto today, Number 4, with its lovely two recorders and superbly virtuosic violin (again played by Bojan), was the perfect ending to an amazing concert, and a very successful series of concerts in the Queen’s Hall, which is not a perfect venue but not a bad one either. 

Cover photo: Andrew Perry