CPE Bach's Version of his father's D Minor Keyboard Concerto?

Speaking of CPE & concerti, I once saw a recording of CPE's arrangement of his father's famous D Minor concerto and made the horrible mistake of not buying it on the spot. The CD was a recording of both concertos side by side.

Do any of you know where this recording is nowadays?

The history of the piece, as I understand it, is that CPE made an arrangement of what was, originally, a violin concerto by his father in D Minor. Apparently, JS was so taken by the potential that he decided to revise his son's revision!

I'm not sure this is quite right. As it has come down to us, BWV 1052 is a harpsichord concerto. I don't know that there is any external evidence that it was an arrangement of a violin concerto, but some of the harpsichord writing strongly suggests it, and JSB of course frequently made such arrangements. So when we hear a violin performance of this concerto, it's a performance of one of the several conjectural 'reconstructions' that have been made over the years. What we can never know, without the original violin score, is what compositional changes the composer may have introduced into the harpsichord version. Still, it works very well as a violin concerto. I have never heard that CPE was involved with arranging this work, but I'm no expert and anyone who knows better is welcome to jump in and correct me.

There is a CD of JS and CPE harpsichord concertos in D minor, the JSB being the famous one and the CPE being an original work with no relation to his father's concerto. The CD I know is played by Leonhardt; my copy is on the Pro Arte label, but a more recent reissue was on Sony/Seon. I got it for the CPE, a fine work that I knew well from growing up with Leonhardt's earlier recording on an RCA Victrola LP. Interpretively the performances are very similar, but in the newer recording the orchestral playing is more in line with current HIP practice than was the playing of Collegium Aureum on the LP.

Then of course there is Busoni's edition of BWV. 1052, still as a keyboard concerto. Recordings include Lipatti with van Beinum/Concertgebouw and Mustonen with Saraste/Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie

BWV 1052 has a complex history. It clearly started out as a violin concerto written in Coethen in the early 1720s (the 'bariolage' effects in the outer movements prove its violin origins). Later, in Leipzig, in 1728 Bach arranged the concerto for organ and orchestra to serve as Sinfonias and a chorus to the cantatas BWV 146 and BWV 188 (adding oboes in the orchestra, and having the left hand of the organ part merely parallel the bass line). In 1734 CPE Bach, who already was writing his own earliest harpsichord concerti, arranged the concerto for harpsichord and strings (BWV 1052a). Then, around 1738-39, needing works to perform at the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, Bach reworked the concerto himself for harpsichord and strings (creating a new left-hand part for the harpsichord soloist, among other details) and placed the concerto at the beginning of a manuscript of six harpsichord concerti (and the fragment of a seventh) arranged from earlier works.

Interestingly, CPE Bach had already written four harpsichord concerti of his own before his father created this manuscript. Did Papa Bach get the idea from Carl?

Tom Wood

Interesting! So I second the original poster's query: is there a recording of 1052a?

Hallo Sporkadelic,

At least one: http://tinyurl.com/fqw4 (organ concerto version)

Ciao

Greetings,

If what we're now talking about is a violin version of BWV. 1052, Josef Szigeti made at least two recordings, one conducted by Stiedry in 1940 and one by Casals, presumably in the 1950s.

And thanks Riccardo, for pointing me to the Amazon recording of the piece! I'll be ordering that today.