in
Weimar. The organ, at the top of the picture, was overhauled by J. K. Weisshaupt in 1707–1708, shortly before Bach's arrival, with further improvements by H. N. Trebs in June 1712–May 1714. Bach's concerto transcriptions reflect not only his general interest in and assimilation of musical forms originating in Italy, in particular the concertos of his Venetian contemporary
Antonio Vivaldi, but also the particular circumstances of his second period of employment 1708–1717 at the court in
Weimar. During his first brief period in Weimar in 1703 Bach was employed as a court violinist for seven months by
Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who ruled jointly with his elder brother
Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Wilhelm Ernst's Lutheran piety contrasted with his younger brother's alcoholism. On Johann Ernst's death in 1707, he was succeeded as coregent by his elder son
Ernst August, who lived with his younger stepbrother,
Prince Johann Ernst, outside the ducal
Wilhelmsburg in the
Rotes Schloss. A talented amateur musician, from an early age Prince Johann Ernst had been taught the violin by the court violinist Gregor Christoph Eilenstein. Johann Ernst studied the keyboard with Bach's distant cousin
Johann Gottfried Walther, after he became organist at the
Stadtkirche in Weimar in 1707. The following year, when Bach himself was appointed as organist in Weimar in the ducal chapel or
Himmelsburg, he not only had at his disposal the recently renovated chapel organ but also the organ in the Stadtkirche. In the
Wilhelmsburg, Wilhelm Ernst had already revived the court orchestra, of which Bach eventually became Concertmaster in 1714. As well as music-making in the
Wilhelmsburg, Bach was almost certainly involved in the parallel more secular musical events in the
Rotes Schloss organised by August Ernst and Johann Ernst. Harpsichords were available to Bach at both venues. traces the influences on Bach's early keyboard compositions—in particular his
sonatas (BWV 963/1, BWV 967) and
toccatas (BWV 912a/2, BWV 915/2)—not only to the works of his older compatriots
Kuhnau,
Böhm and
Buxtehude, but also to the works of Italian composers from the end of the seventeenth century; in particular the chamber sonatas of
Corelli and the concertos of
Torelli and
Albinoni. . In the foreground is a copy of a 1705 harpsichord of the type Bach would have played in Weimar. In the background is a 1650 chamber organ from
Kleinschwabhausen near Weimar. , engraving by Valentin Daniel Preisler Early works like BWV 912a and BWV 967, probably composed before 1707, also display concerto-like elements. The first documented evidence of Bach's engagement with the concerto genre can be dated to around 1709, during his second period in Weimar, when he made a hand copy of the continuo part of Albinoni's
Sinfonie e concerti a 5, Op. 2 (1700). Earlier compositions had been brought back to Weimar from Italy by the deputy
Capellmeister,
Johann Wilhelm Drese, during his stay there in 1702–1703. In 1709 the virtuoso violinist
Johann Georg Pisendel visited Weimar: he had studied with Torelli and is likely to have acquainted Bach with more of the Italian concerto repertoire. In the same year Bach also copied out all the parts of the double violin concerto in G major, TWV 52:G2, of
Georg Philipp Telemann, a work that he might have acquired through Pisendel. Bach would also have known Telemann well then since he was court musician at
Eisenach, Bach's birthplace. Telemann's concerto for solo violin, TWV 51:g1, transcribed by Bach for harpsichord as BWV 985, comes from the same series of Eisenach concertos as the double violin concerto; moreover, as explained in , there is evidence that the slow movement of Telemann's oboe concerto TWV 51:G2, also from the series, was borrowed and adapted by Bach for the opening sinfonia of the cantata
Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe, BWV 156 and the slow movement of the harpsichord concerto in F minor,
BWV 1056, both dating from his period in
Leipzig. Telemann also had a documented social connection with Bach: in March 1714 he was godparent at the baptism in Weimar of Bach's second son
Carl Philipp Emanuel. , the collection of 12 concertos of Vivaldi's Op. 3, published in Amsterdam by
Estienne Roger Later in July 1713, Prince Johann Ernst returned from
Utrecht after studying there for 2 years. A keen amateur violinist, he is likely to have brought or sent back concerto scores from
Amsterdam, probably including the collection ''
L'estro armonico'', Op. 3 of
Vivaldi, published there in 1711. Once back in Weimar, he studied composition with Walther, concentrating on the violin concerto. In July 1714, however, poor health forced him to leave Weimar to seek medical treatment in
Bad Schwalbach: he died a year later at the age of nineteen. A number of his concertos were published posthumously by Telemann. Johann Ernst's enthusiasm for the concerto fitted well with Bach's own interests. It was under these circumstances that Bach, as composer and performer, made his virtuosic concerto transcriptions for organ (BWV 592–596) and for harpsichord (BWV 972–987 and BWV 592a). Although Bach served as Concertmaster in Weimar from 1714–1717, when he is presumed to have composed his own instrumental concertos, the only surviving works in Italian concerto-form from this period are his transcriptions of works by other composers. Of these, the main body were by Vivaldi, with others by Telemann,
Alessandro and
Benedetto Marcello and Johann Ernst himself. At the same time, Bach's cousin Walther also made a series of organ transcriptions of Italian concertos: in his autobiography, Walther mentions 78 such transcriptions; but of these only 14 survive, of concertos by Albinoni, Giorgio Gentili, Giulio Taglietti, Telemann, Torelli and Vivaldi. Bach and Walther arranged different sets of concertos: Bach favoured the more recent ritornello form, less prevalent in the earlier concertos transcribed by Walther. has given the following explanation for the transcriptions: in
Erfurt. The facade is that of the original baroque organ built in 1650 by Ludwig Compenius, who also built the organ in the
Himmelsburg in Weimar Schulze has further suggested that during his two year period studying in the Netherlands, Prince Johann Ernst is likely to have attended the popular concerts in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam where the blind organist Jan Jakob de Graaf performed his own transcriptions of the most recent Italian concertos. It is possible that this could have led to Johann Ernst to suggest similar concerto transcriptions to Bach and Walther. Other circumstantial evidence concerning music-making in Weimar is provided by a letter written by Bach's pupil Philipp David Kräuter in April 1713. Asking for permission to stay longer in Weimar, he states that Prince Johann Ernst, Kräuter's letter ties in with the organ repairs by Trebs made between June 1713 and May 1714. Commentators have found Schulze's arguments persuasive, but nevertheless point out that not all the transcriptions need have been made in the period from July 1713 to July 1714 when the Prince was back in Weimar. While this could be true for the simpler harpsichord transcriptions, some of the more virtuosic organ transcriptions could date from later, possible composed as a memorial to the prince, after his untimely death. Published records of Bach's life include his
Nekrolog or obituary, written in 1754 by his son
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and former pupil
Johann Friedrich Agricola, and the 1802 biography of
Johann Nikolaus Forkel. The Nekrolog contains the famous statement about the Duke, Wilhelm Ernst, encouraging Bach as an organist-composer, quoted at the start of this section. In the often quoted passage from his biography, Forkel wrote: , 1723 Although Forkel's account is generally acknowledged to be oversimplified and factually inaccurate, commentators agree that Bach's knowledge and assimilation of the Italian concerto form—which happened partly through his transcriptions—played a key role in the development of his mature style. In practical terms, the concerto transcriptions were suitable for performance in the different venues in Weimar; they would have served an educational purpose for the young prince as well as giving him pleasure. has carried out a systematic study of headings and markings in surviving manuscripts to ascertain the intended instrument for Bach's keyboard works. These have customarily been divided into two distinct groups, his works for organ and his works for harpsichord or clavichord. Although in early music the intended instrument was often not specified, but left to the performer, this was often not the case with Bach's music. Based on known manualiter settings within Bach's works for organ, the possible audience for performances of virtuosic keyboard compositions and the circumstances of their composition, Marshall has suggested that the concerto transcriptions BWV 972–987 might originally have been intended as manualiter settings for the organ. edition of Bach's organ works. BWV 592–595 appeared in 1852, edited by Friedrich Griepenkerl, a student of Forkel. The reception of the concerto transcriptions is reflected in their transmission: they were less widely disseminated than Bach's original organ or keyboard works and were only published in the 1850s during the mid-nineteenth century Bach revival. More significantly perhaps, the concerto transcriptions played a decisive role in the Vivaldi revival which happened only in the following century. The meteoric success of Vivaldi in the early eighteenth century was matched by his descent into almost complete oblivion soon after his death in 1741. In Great Britain, France and particularly his native Italy, musical taste turned against him and, when he was remembered, it was just through salacious anecdote. Only in Northern Germany, where his concertos had influenced a school of composers, was his legacy properly appreciated. The publication of Bach's transcriptions has been recognized by Vivaldi scholars as a decisive step in his revival. In fact the new edition of the concerto transcriptions published by the
Bach-Gesellschaft in the 1890s and the ensuing controversy in assessing their authorship and that of the original concertos in the 1910s sparked a reevaluation of Vivaldi and subsequently the rediscovery of his "lost" works. Although no precise dating of the concerto transcriptions is possible, combining a careful scientific analysis of surviving manuscripts—including their watermarks—with a knowledge of documented events in Bach's life has given a clearer idea of when they might have been written: it is generally thought that most were probably written in the period 1713–1714, but that some could have been written later. The transcriptions themselves became known through a variety of sources. The two most significant for dating purposes are the autograph manuscript of the organ transcription BWV 596; and the hand copies of the organ transcription BWV 592 and the harpsichord transcriptions BWV 972–982 made by Bach's second cousin
Johann Bernhard Bach from Eisenach, who is known to have visited Weimar in May 1715. These include all the transcriptions of the Venetian concertos (those by Vivaldi and the Marcello brothers). The remaining organ transcriptions come from copies made in
Leipzig by Bach's family and circle: these include his eldest son
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, whose organ repertoire included the transcriptions; his pupil
Johann Friedrich Agricola; and
Johann Peter Kellner. The other harpsichord transcriptions BWV 983–987 are contained in a collection of manuscripts of Kellner ("Kellner's Miscellany"), copied by himself and others. ==Bach's transcriptions==