KNOW YOUR CLASSICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 20

KNOW YOUR CLASSICS

| THIS series of articles, written for "The Listener" by

BESSIE

POLLARD

is designed to help the student and the interested

| listener towards a more. complete appreciation of good music. Each

atticle deals in outline with one accepted masterpiece and illustrates

oe its main themes.

(15) Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, String Orchestra & Continuo 0 J.S. Bach). HE Italian masters Corelli, Torelli, and Vivaldi at the end | of the 17th Century had laid the foundations for a school of brilliant violin virtuoso playing; out of this evolved solo Concerto form which was somewhat different from the Concerto Grosso. Bach, using this Italian violin Concerto as a model, wrote several after he settled in Leipzig, but a few only have survived, notably the solo Concertos in A minor and E major, and the double Concerto in D minor; another two are more familiar to-day in Bach’s own transcription as piano Concertos, The D minor Concerto for two violins, string orchestra, and continuo begins with a lively fugal first movement; the main theme ("A" below) is announced at the outset by the second solo violin, and orchestra, and at bar 5 the first solo violin enters playing it a fifth higher. In bar 22 the first solo violin gives out another important subject ("B" below)-

Accompanying the opening theme we hear a corners played by basses and continuo ("A" belew), and there\is considerable contrapuntal working out of this thematic material. In bar 49 the second solo violin gives out a sub-theme based on the semiquaver motif of the main subject CB" below) —

The lovely second movement reveals Bach’s peerless skill in handling the fugal form, demonstrating that in a master’s hands it need not be a mere mathematical. exercise, hut that it cam convey profound and moving emotions. All through the movemient the orchestra is used only as an accompanying vehicle. The two main themes ("A" and "B" below) are used in combination; at bar 17 ("C" below) the soloists play a variant of the "B" theme-

In the third movement the,soloists introduce the main theme, in imitation ("A" below) while the second theme is canonical in style ("B" below)

The third motif ("A" below)-quiet and subdued-is given out by the first solo violin against a counter-subject supplied by basses and continuo; it is taken over in bar 25 by the second solo violin, which announces, also, an important counter-melody in bar 73 ("B" below)-

Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, String Orchestra and Continuo will be heard from Station 2YC on Friday, October 22, ‘at 9.0 p.m.