Violin Concertos

Johann Sebastian Bach is always seen as a keyboard virtuoso, but he must also have been a very good violinist. At least that is what his son Carl Phillip Emanuel reports and that he was better able to lead the orchestra with his violin than from the harpsichord. Whether Bach wrote his violin concertos for himself or for a guest soloist - possibly the virtuoso Johann Georg Pisendel, who was a friend of his - can no longer be determined today. Two of Bach's violin concertos have survived, which the violinist duo Florian Deuter and Monica Waisman split between them, as well as the Double Concerto in D minor for two violins and orchestra BWV 1043. The two soloists and their ensemble Harmonie Universelle complete the programme with a second Double Concerto in C minor BWV 1060R, the original version of which has not survived. However, Bach himself had arranged the work for two harpsichords, from which this version for two violins could be reconstructed.