When you listen to the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, you don’t need a musicologist to tell you that something new and different is happening. Even two and three quarter centuries after it actually was new, you can hear the unmistakable thrumming energy of a master at the height of his powers doing something wild and daring with absolute self-confidence. When Bach wrote it, he put himself at the harpsichord instead of the viola he more usually played in ensembles. It was at a happy, productive time of his life when he was at last surrounded by some good musicians. The harpsichord traditionally played a supporting role in this kind of group, but not this time. Bach let rip.

As you listen to the first movement, you hear something strange, new, and terrifying giving birth to itself. Or maybe it’s a giant engine, or even a great horse being prepared for a Herculean task, surrounded by (you can’t help jumbling metaphors when language tries to keep up with music) a flotilla of helpers fussing around it. You hear it ticking over, trotting, having a little canter here and there, getting a bit frisky, and then taking a trial run as its helpers encourage it onward, keening with bated breath. It hauls itself back in again, does another quick circuit . . . and then the other instruments fall silent. It stands free and alone, pawing at the ground, breathing deeply, gathering its strength, trotting forward . . .

And then it makes its move—running . . . hurtling . . . flying . . . climbing . . . clambering . . . pushing . . . panting . . . twisting . . . thrashing . . . pounding at the ground . . . pounding . . . pounding . . . suddenly breaking away, running onward desperately, and then, with one last little unexpected step up in the bass, it’s home and free—the main tune charges in triumphantly and it’s all over bar the weeping and dancing (i.e., the second and third movements).

The familiarity of the Brandenburgs should not blind us to their magnitude. I’m convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy.

—Penguin Classics Vol. 27: Bach—Brandenburg Concertos 5 & 6,
Violin Concerto in A Minor (English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britten)

The Universe

Frank the Vandal

The Macintosh came out five years ago, and I seem to have had the builders in my house for almost that long. Someone asked me the other day what they were doing, and I explained that I had been trying to pluck up the courage to ask them that myself.