Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Concerto for Two Pianos, C-minor, BWV 1062 (1736)
Bach had to invent the concerto for harpsichord, in order for his Concerto for Two Pianos to exist.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians (stretching back generations) on March 31, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany. His father, the town musician, taught him to play violin. Raised Lutheran, Johann’s studies included religion, which later influenced his music. Both of his parents died when Bach was 10, and his older brother, a church organist in Ohrdruf, took him in, providing instruction in organ and harpsichord.
Bach excelled in school; he also had a beautiful soprano voice and sang in the choir. His choir master arranged for him to attend St. Michael’s School on scholarship. Fifteen-year-old Bach set off on a 180-mile journey on foot to the monastery in Lüneberg where he sang with the chamber choir’s best singers. He also had use of the school’s harpsichord, three-manual organ, and extensive music library.
Bach married his first wife in 1701. In 1703, he was back in Thuringia, juggling various jobs. He worked as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, at courts in Weimar, and in Cöthen.
In Arnstadt, Bach argued with his students and was scolded by church officials. In 1705, he took a few weeks leave to hear a famous organist play in Lübeck—but didn’t return for several months. In Mühlhausen, the church pastor found Bach’s musical style too complex.
In 1717, Bach played violin for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, a Calvinist, whose worship didn’t require the “well-regulated church music to the glory of God” that Bach wanted to write. When Bach tried to leave, the prince imprisoned him for several weeks.
From age 32-36, Bach created some of his best-known music: the Brandenburg Concerti, the Cello Suites, the Violin Concerti, the Orchestral Suites, the Violin Sonatas and Partitas, and groundwork for Well-Tempered Clavier.
He had four children, including Carl Philipp Emmanuel (C.P.E), and buried three others. In 1720, his second wife died of appendicitis. That same year, he began hosting concerts at Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse in Leipzig, with the Collegium Musicum, an ensemble of professional and university musicians. Bach became the Collegium’s director in 1729, a position he held for a decade.
Until then, the harpsichord traditionally played an accompanying role to other instruments—so Bach invented the harpsichord concerto. His concertos were not, however, original compositions. All of his solo and multiple harpsichord concertos (except for one) were transcriptions of earlier works written for other instruments—only three of which have survived, two for violin and one for two violins.
A harpsichord version of a concerto for violin or other single-line instruments required updates and alterations. For a two-harpsichord concerto, Bach needed to provide parts for the left hand. For this, he sometimes doubled the continuo basso or wrote new material, changing violin writing into keyboard passage work and adding ornamentation.
Bach’s Concerto for Two Pianos began as a transcription of his Concerto in D minor for Two Violins. It was then altered down to suit the range of the harpsichord.
The first of three movements has no name or tempo indication. It begins with the full ensemble attaca (“attack immediately”) on the downbeat; the hard-driving, fugal short refrain, with its irregular theme, sends the concerto off on a relentless journey. A vigorous rivalry between the two solo pianos ensues between short tutti restatements during the ritornello (reoccurring passage).
The lyrical Andante e piano—echoing the somber aria “Ombra mai fu” in Handel’s opera Xerxes—offers some of Bach’s best-known music. His 19th-century biographer, Philipp Spitta, called the Andante “a very pearl of noble and expressive melody.” Heartrending single-note sighs in this glistening, emotional siciliano (lyrical melody with dotted rhythm) are set against the pianos’ descending melodic lines. This transcendent movement concludes with a modest two-chord progression.
Two swift, upbeat notes lob the ritornello forward for Allegro assai, as the pianos impatiently wait for the strings to finish—jumping into action and sending them into a supportive role punctuating short melodic moments. Swelling passagework, throbbing harpsichord chords, and pianos chasing and intersecting one another, restlessly moving from one set of keys to another, makes this finale one of Bach’s most exciting.
Following the concerto’s success, Bach continued to perform, but his popularity began to fade, along with his eyesight. In 1750, eye surgery left him completely blind. That year, Bach suffered a stroke and died in Leipzig on July 28.
During his lifetime, Bach was recognized as an organist more than a composer, despite having written masterpieces in every major Baroque genre (except opera). Few of his works were published. Today, Bach’s music—full of emotional musical complexities and stylistic innovations—is recognized for its genius. Bach, though, preferred to credit God.
Jayce Keane, who began her career as a journalist for The Rocky Mountain News, has been working in the orchestra industry and writing about music for 18 years. A longtime resident of California, she now lives in Colorado.