A Picnic with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 2
I. Allegro
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
I'm Johann Sebastian Bach, and I'm glad to be your guide through the I. Allegro of my Brandenburg Concerto No 2. Here you'll meet the music that flew into space on the Voyager Golden Record, in a recording by the Munich Bach Orchestra under Karl Richter, and that alone makes these minutes worth spending. On this site my fellow composers and I teach you to recognize our pieces when they play, and you can start with the Trainer right now.
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Pick a Favorite and Follow It
My advice for a first listen is to forget about understanding everything and simply choose one of the four soloists to follow: the trumpet, the recorder, the oboe or the violin. The trumpet is the easiest to spot, because it's bright and high, and I wrote it for a clarino specialist who could make it carry over everyone else. Behind the soloists sit the strings and the harpsichord, who act like a steady carpet under the others, and you'll notice them most when the whole group plays together. Listen for the moments when one soloist steps forward and the rest fall quiet, then for the moments when everybody joins in again, because that give and take is what the whole movement is built on.A Name I Never Actually Wrote
People often ask why I called this movement Allegro, and the honest answer is that I never put a tempo marking at the top of the page. Allegro is simply the word musicians have settled on over the years, and it means lively, which suits the way the music moves. The pace is quick but never frantic, because the soloists need enough room to play their fast passages cleanly. So take the name as a friendly hint about the speed rather than a rule I handed down.A Form With a Familiar Face
Choosing the form for this movement was an adventure of its own, and I ended up with a concerto design in which one big theme keeps coming back. The full group plays that theme, and between its visits the soloists take turns in the spotlight. I'll divide the movement into four sections here, and then I'll walk you through each of them in the paragraphs that follow. Think of the returning theme as a landmark on a hike: each time you pass it you know where you are, even though the scenery around it has changed.Section 1: The Grand Entrance
The movement starts in F major with the full group playing the main theme, and the lively tempo is set right from the first notes. The mood is bright and confident, with everyone playing the same energetic idea together. Try to remember how this theme sounds, because it's the one you'll be listening for all the way through. Once the opening has made its point, the music gets ready to hand the stage over to the soloists.Section 2: Solo Auditions
Now the full group steps back and the soloists come forward one after another, each with a bit of the theme or a lively idea of its own. The tempo stays brisk, but the mood becomes lighter and more playful, like friends passing a conversation around the table. The music also begins to wander away from F major, so the harmony feels a little less settled than it did at the start. That small sense of traveling is exactly what makes the next return of the theme so satisfying.Section 3: The Theme Pops Back Up
Here the main theme comes back, but it often arrives in pieces and sounds a little different each time, as if it were dressed for a new setting. The soloists keep answering the full group, so the mood switches between a big shared statement and a quick, nimble reply. The energy builds in this stretch, because the music keeps moving through unfamiliar harmonic territory without ever slowing down. If you listen closely, you can hear each soloist trying to outshine the others in a friendly way.Section 4: Home at Last
In the final section the music returns to F major, and you can feel it settle like a traveler stepping through his own front door. The full group plays the main theme once more, and by now it sounds like an old friend. The tempo never drops, so the movement ends with the same lively spirit it began with. When the last chord arrives, the whole story has gone from a bold statement through a lot of friendly competition and back home again.Your Turn, Press Play
Now I invite you to listen for yourself, so press play and let the music carry you along. While it plays, keep in mind the returning theme, your favorite soloist, and the way the music travels away from F major and then comes back. A recording of this very movement, played by the Munich Bach Orchestra under Karl Richter, was put on the Voyager Golden Record, so it has traveled much farther than I ever did. I hope you enjoy the journey through my Allegro as much as I enjoyed creating it.---
I hope you enjoyed this listen guide to the first movement of Brandenburg Concerto No 2, the Allegro. Did you enjoy learning about it, and did it give you a few new things to listen for? I like to think that the best way to know a piece is to come back to it again and again, and each time you'll probably hear something you missed before. Maybe one day you'll follow the violin from start to finish, and another day you'll simply let the whole group wash over you. There's still a good deal more to discover in Brandenburg Concerto No 2, and the other two movements have plenty of their own surprises. One of them is even in a different key from the one you've just heard, and it has a quite different mood. If you'd like to keep exploring, I invite you to click on the links provided here and carry on your journey through this concerto. I'd be glad to have you along for the next listen.