page_title: Weimar concerto transcriptions (Bach)
section_title: Concerto in D minor, BWV 596
hierarchical_section_title: Weimar concerto transcriptions (Bach) / Bach's transcriptions / Organ transcriptions, BWV 592–596 / Concerto in D minor, BWV 596
caption_attribution_description: Autograph score of the first movement of BWV 596, Johann Sebastian Bach's transcription of Vivaldi's double violin concerto Op.3. No.11.
context_page_description: The concerto transcriptions of Johann Sebastian Bach date from his second period at the court in Weimar. Bach transcribed for organ and harpsichord a number of Italian and Italianate concertos, mainly by Antonio Vivaldi, but with others by Alessandro Marcello, Benedetto Marcello, Georg Philipp Telemann and the musically talented Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. It is thought that most of the transcriptions were probably made in 1713–1714. Their publication by C.F. Peters in the 1850s and by Breitkopf & Härtel in the 1890s played a decisive role in the Vivaldi revival of the twentieth century.
  Johann Sebastian Bach was a court musician in Weimar from 1708 to 1717. He wrote most, if not all, of his concerto transcriptions for organ and for harpsichord from July 1713 to July 1714. Most of these transcriptions were based on concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Other models for the transcriptions included concertos by Alessandro Marcello, Benedetto Marcello, Georg Philipp Telemann and Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar.
  Around 1715 Johann Bernhard Bach, Johann Sebastian's second cousin, copied 12 of the concerto transcriptions in a single manuscript.
context_section_description: This concerto is an transcription of Antonio Vivaldi's double violin concerto, Op. 3 No. 11, RV 565.
  [Allegro]
  Pieno. Grave – Fuge
  Largo e spiccato
  [Allegro]
  This transcription of Vivaldi's concerto had the heading on the autograph manuscript altered by Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach who added "di W. F. Bach manu mei Patris descript" sixty or more years later. The result was that up until 1911 the transcription was misattributed to Wilhelm Friedemann. Despite the fact that Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin where many Bach manuscripts were held, had suggested Johann Sebastian as the author, the transcription was first published as a work by Wilhelm Friedemann in 1844 in the edition prepared for C.F. Peters by Friedrich Griepenkerl. The precise dating and true authorship was later established from the manuscript: the handwriting and the watermarks in the manuscript paper conform to cantatas known to have been composed by Bach in Weimar in 1714–1715.
  The autograph manuscript is remarkable for its detailed specifications of organ registration and use of the two manuals. As explained in Williams (2003), their main purpose was to enable the concerto to be heard at Bach's desired pitch. The markings are also significant for what they show about performance practise at that time: during the course of a single piece, hands could switch manuals and organ stops could be changed.
caption: Autograph manuscript of first movement of BWV 596
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