Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo BWV 992 (1704)
Dedication: Johann Jacob Bach (1682–1722)

1. Arioso: Adagio. Ist eine Schmeichelung der Freunde,
um denselben von seiner Reise abzuhalten (The friends plead with him not to take the journey) (0:00)

2. (Andante). Ist eine Vorstellung unterschiedlicher Casuum,
die ihm in der Fremde könnten vorfallen (A description of the dangers which could befall him in another country) (2:26)

3. Adagiosissimo: Ist ein allgemeines Lamento der Freunde (Lamentation of all the friends) (3:54)

4. (Andante con moto) All hier kommen die Freunde
(weil sie doch sehen, dass es anders nicht sein kann) und nehmen Abschied (Seeing that they cannot dissuade him, they bid him farewell) (6:29)

5. Aria di Postiglione (Aria of the coach’s post-horn): Allegro poco
Fuga all' imitazione die Posta [della cornetta di postiglione]

PETER WATCHORN, harpsichord
(Hubbard & Broekman after Ruckers/Blanchet/Taskin, 1990)

Along with the cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allebeste Zeit, BWV 106, the Capriccio may well be the earliest work of Bach that we can date with any certainty, for, if tradition is to be believed, it commemorates an actual historical event, the departure of his older brother, Johann Jacob (1682 – 1722), to join the musical establishment of Charles XII of Sweden in 1704 as an oboist (as Bach recalled it in his family chronology, compiled in 1735). His career took him all the way to Constantinople where he encountered the French flute virtuoso, Gabriel Buffardin, with whom he studied, joining the Stockholm court as flautist in 1714. The clear model for this work is the set of Biblical Sonatas, published just a few years prior in 1700 by the Cantor of St. Thomas’s in Leipzig, Johann Kuhnau, whom Bach was to succeed in that position by 1723. Six short descriptive movements convey the reactions among a group of friends to the impending departure of Johann Jacob. The titles are written in a mixture of German and Italian, perhaps indicating the link between the music of the two countries even prior to Bach’s own discovery a decade later of the music of Vivaldi and others.
At first we hear “flattering harmonies” – sensuous Italianate thirds and sixths – calculated to coax Johann Jacob away from his plan to leave, culminating in a perfect example of Baroque rhetoric on display in its final bars, where the pleading sixths grow stubbornly emphatic against a descending bass –overlaid with ornamentation of increasing complexity. This grows ever more urgent, as the friends alter their strategy with the following short fugue, full of twisting thematic ornaments and tortuous harmonies, whereby they depict the various potential calamities that
might occur, followed by their “general” (communal?) lament. As in BWV 106, where a specific text is illustrated musically by descent into rarely-used keys, Bach uses unusual tonal centres here to conjure up such concepts as grief and pain. The lament, written in the unusual key of
F minor (reminding us of the tonal excursions of Gottes Zeit, BWV 106, as the text describes the descent into death, prior to resurrection) consists of twelve variations above a four-bar ostinato.The pivotal position of the Lamento in the larger work is underlined by the extreme tempo indication: Adagissimo. The piece is only partially realized, and requires certain filling in of the harmonies (indicated by sections of figured bass – I have used my teacher, Isolde Ahlgrimm’s ingenious working out of this piece, as a homage to her own beautiful recording from 1974 – it inspired many details of the present performance), while the sudden absence of figures in the last line of the score, and very specifically notated phrasing indicate that the bass line should conclude the work on its own, tasto solo. After the lament, “seeing that it cannot be otherwise”, the friends take their leave of him, sending him off with a brief set of energetic chords (suggesting a rather sudden departure on his, and change of mind on their, part). This passage leads straight into an aria that suggests the natural harmonics created by the post-horn that was used to announce the arrival and departure of a stagecoach (descending octaves). Finally, Bach provides an energetic and ingenious fugue in “imitation” of the post-horn’s fanfare – the same descending octave figure that appears in the aria.
Peter Watchorn.

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