Johann Sebastian Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No.1 in D minor, BWV 1052 - I. Allegro

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 † 1750) Concerto for harpsichord, strings and basso continuo No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052 Composed in 1738 during Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cöthen period, is thought to be based on a lost violin concerto. It is clear from the manuscript notation that the concerto was composed for the two manuals of the harpsichord. The piece is composed in three movements; the first one was later used by Bach as an organ prelude, and the slow movement became the first chorus of his Cantata No. 146, “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal.“ I. Allegro (0:00) Like most of Bach’s instrumental concertos, this concerto employs the Italian ritornello form. The ritornello of the first movement is a driving six-bar unison theme whose opening five notes form the foundation for the majority of the movement. The theme’s power stems from its ever-expanding leaps and its emphatic closing cadence. Most of the soloist’s passages are derived from this theme, but Bach later introduces a chromatic, toccata-like secondary theme for effect. The ritornello immediately gives way to a carefully mapped progression through the neighboring keys, using the dominant minor, the relative major, the relative major of the dominant minor, and so forth. The soloist leads the concerto through sections of contrapuntal and harmonic exploration, interspersed with several varied restatements of the ritornello by the strings. Following an elaborate cadenza by the soloist, the first movement closes with a unison restatement of the ritornello.