Johann Sebastian Bach
Violin Concerto in A Minor

Philharmonia Virtuosi

Paul Peabody (Violin)

Richard Kapp (Conductor)

J. S. Bach

Bach was an excellent violinist. He wrote this piece in 1723, while he was serving as the Kapellmeister at Cothen, and it is likely that he played the solo part himself at the first performance.

The first movement of this concerto demonstrates several important features common to almost all baroque music. He uses Counterpoint (weaving melodies together to create a dense texture) to great effect, and he alternates the solo violin with bursts of energy from the orchestra, often described as rittornello sections.

Bach wrote a huge amount of music and is one of the key composers of the baroque period, although his music is far from typical - a genius and a businessman, he wrote music the way everybody else did, only he pushed to boundaries further and was often more ambitious in his projects.

Johann Friedrich Fasch

Suite No. 1 in D

Pro Musica Kiev

Richard Kapp (Conductor)

Fasch Manuscript

Fasch is an example of a late Baroque composer. Although he only lived for a few years after Bach, his music is an example of the sort of thing that would have come between that of Bach and that of Mozart, the two undisputed masters of their respective periods, the Baroque and the Classical.

Baroque suites were really just a collection of orchestral pieces, more similar to the classical divertimento than the modern concept of a symphony. The movements are frequently dance-like in structure and movements are rarely linked by any kind of thematic material.

Fasch composed for an orchestra much closer in size to Mozart's than Bach's, and in many was quite ahead of his time. In spite of this, none of his music was composed during his lifetime.

George Frideric Handel

Water Music
Orchestre Symphonique de Radio-Télé-Luxembourg

Louis de Froment (Conductor)

Handel's Water Music is one of the most famous pieces to have been written during the Baroque Period. It is celebratory in character, and was written for a Royal party.

It was first performed by a band of 50 musicians travelling down the Thames on a barge, following the then King, George I, and this is how it got its name.

The King was certainly very impressed by Handel's handiwork, as this contemporary account attests: "His Majesty approved of the music so greatly that he caused it to be repeated three times in all, although each performance lasted an hour - namely twice before and once after supper".