Due to the COVID-19 situation, violinist Karen Gomyo was not able to make her scheduled debut with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in July 2020. In lieu of this, we've teamed up with her and Singapore's most popular violin prodigy, Chloe Chua, to produce this performance of the Largo from Bach's Violin Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, BWV 1043. This video was part of the SSO's 20/21 Season Opening Concert first broadcast online on 11 July 2020.

Chloe Chua & Karen Gomyo, violins
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Darrell Ang, harpsichord
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Johann Sebastian Bach is now regarded as one of the greatest composers – if not the greatest – who ever lived. He was born in 1685 and spent his life writing music for the Protestant church and the powerful aristocratic courts of present-day Germany. By the time of his death in 1750 he had written a vast repertoire of music including choral cantatas, organ music, keyboard suites and orchestral music.

The Double Violin Concerto was probably written between 1717 and 1723, when Bach worked for Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen as his Kapellmeister or director of music. His responsibilities were chiefly to compose music and organise performances for the Prince and his court. Two of the musicians he had at his disposal were a pair of talented Principal Violinists, Joseph Speiss and Martin Friedrich Marcus, and this concerto was likely a vehicle to allow his two star soloists shine.
This is the only concerto Bach wrote for two violins – and it’s one of very few written throughout history for a pair of violin soloists. The great Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote his own Double Violin Concerto just a few years earlier, in 1711. And we can be sure that Bach knew this work because he created his own organ transcription of the piece (in a time before recorded music, this was the best way to hear a new work).

The outer two movements (Vivace and Allegro) show Vivaldi’s influence, but in this central movement (Largo ma non tanto) the high-spirited fugal writing gives way to a more delicate counterpoint between the two soloists.

The second violin opens with a beautiful, song-like melody, which is then passed between the two violins. As the dreamy melody seamlessly unfurls over the course of the five-minute movement, Bach strips back the string orchestra accompaniment. In place of the dazzling fugue of the opening movement, there are simple chords played in a repeated short-long pattern, gently propelling the music forward.

Robert Schumann once said: “In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune no one else has thought of.” In his Double Violin Concerto, Bach managed to create just that: a melody that feels like something half-recalled from childhood, and a balm for the soul in uncertain times.

Programme note by Elizabeth Davies/SSG

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Thumbnail photo: Providence Doucet/Unsplash