The “Clavier” Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052 has its origin in a violin concerto from Bach’s time at Weimar. It wasn’t always possible for a very busy musician like Bach to compose new works for every concert at Zimmermann’s, and often he would rework older scores for a different complement of instruments. Thomas’s Church, performing his own and other composers’ concerti grossi, overtures, solo concertos and chamber music. There he was able to cultivate a different repertoire from that of St. In 1720, Bach the Thomaskantor assumed the directorship of Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum, performing with them every Friday evening in the rooms of Gottfried Zimmermann’s coffee house. His venue for this pioneering endeavour was an eating establishment. But the instrument he wrote them for was the harpsichord, which he liberated from its shadowy existence as a continuo instrument and brought out into the open as a soloist interacting with the orchestra. It’s possible that Bach, who acquired a fortepiano in the 1740s, late in his life, would have enjoyed hearing his “clavier” concertos played on a modern concert grand. And Bach went a step farther by extending it to organ terminology: he composed Part III of his Clavierübung for that instrument, though its sound is produced by pipes and not strings. Clavichord, spinet, virginal and fortepiano were all grouped under this rubric.
“Clavier” in his day could refer to any and all strung keyboard instruments – as indicated by the word’s derivation from the Middle Latin “clavis” (key). When Johann Sebastian Bach referred to a “clavier”, he did not mean the instrument we now associate with the piano. A not dissimilar world of expression is evoked in the demonic Don Giovanni overture as well as in Haydn’s Military Symphony, in which latter work the composer succeeds in making tangible the depths and horrors of war – powerful evidence to refute Haydn’s widely assumed blandness.Ĭlavier, Café and Compositional Craft Music for new audiences by Bach, Haydn and Mozart “Middle-class milieu”: Bach’s “Clavier” Concerto No. 20, which is also in D minor and already foreshadows with its sombre emotion the Romantic piano concertos of the 19th century. Schiff meaningfully couples this work of Bach’s with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, a work which the Berliner Philharmoniker had not performed for over half a century – or, to be more precise, not since the legendary performance with Glenn Gould and Herbert von Karajan in 1958. The evening opens with Bach’s Piano Concerto No. In this recording, Schiff appears on the platform as both pianist and conductor – just as Baroque and Classical composers of the day once directed their concertos from the keyboard. And for this concert, Bach himself, of course, could not be omitted.
By his own admission, he is only interested in composers whom he recognises as having a connection to music by Bach – such as Mozart and Haydn, both of whom feature in this programme for his guest appearance in this concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Liszt, Rachmaninov, Ravel – he never plays a single note by any of them. András Schiff is a pianist with a clearly circumscribed repertoire.
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