THE “BRANDENBURG” CONCERTOS
These ideas apply with particular conviction to Bach’s most familiar body of instrumental music and can serve to “defamiliarize” it interestingly, perhaps illuminatingly. In 1721, while serving at Cöthen, Bach gathered up six instrumental concertos that he had composed over the last decade or so, wrote them out in a new “fair copy” or presentation manuscript, and sent them off with a suitably obsequious calligraphic dedication page, elegantly composed in French (the German court language), to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg (Fig. 6-11), hoping for an appointment to the latter’s court in Berlin. (Several of Bach’s best known compositions, in fact, were written or assembled in connection with job- or title-hunting, often unsuccessful; they include his “B-minor Mass,” about which more in the next chapter.)
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Class of 1685 (I)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-06009.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Class of 1685 (I). In Oxford University Press, Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries. New York, USA. Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-06009.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Class of 1685 (I)." In Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-06009.xml
