A talented amateur musician, from an early age Prince Johann Ernst had been taught the violin by the court violinist Gregor Christoph Eilenstein. On Johann Ernst's death in 1707, he was succeeded as coregent by his elder son Ernst August, who lived with his younger stepbrother, Prince Johann Ernst, outside the ducal Wilhelmsburg in the Rotes Schloss. Wilhelm Ernst's Lutheran piety contrasted with his younger brother's alcoholism. The 3-storey Rotes Schloss is over the footbridge on the far left.ĭuring his first brief period in Weimar in 1703 Bach was employed as a court violinist for seven months by Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who ruled jointly with his elder brother Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. View of Weimar, 1686: the Wilhelmsburg is in the centre, with the Stadtkirche behind. The pleasure His Grace took in his playing fired him with the desire to try every possible artistry in his treatment of the organ. History, purpose, transmission and significance 3.4 After Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe–Weimar.3.2.2 Alessandro Marcello's Oboe concerto.3.1.2 Concertos circulating as manuscript.2.2.12 Concerto in B-flat major, BWV 982.2.2 Harpsichord transcriptions, BWV 592a and 972–987.1 History, purpose, transmission and significance.For the organ transcriptions there is no known sequence that may go back to Bach's time. The sequence of the concertos in this manuscript is possibly as intended by the composer. This manuscript, shelf mark P 280 in the Berlin State Library, starts with the harpsichord transcriptions BWV 972–981, followed by the organ transcription BWV 592, and ends with BWV 982. Īround 1715 Johann Bernhard Bach, Johann Sebastian's second cousin, copied 12 of the concerto transcriptions in a single manuscript. Other models for the transcriptions included concertos by Alessandro Marcello, Benedetto Marcello, Georg Philipp Telemann and Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar.
Most of these transcriptions were based on concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. He wrote most, if not all, of his concerto transcriptions for organ ( BWV 592–596) and for harpsichord ( BWV 592a and 972–987) from July 1713 to July 1714. Johann Sebastian Bach was a court musician in Weimar from 1708 to 1717. Peters in the 1850s and by Breitkopf & Härtel in the 1890s played a decisive role in the Vivaldi revival of the twentieth century. It is thought that most of the transcriptions were probably made in 1713–1714. 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. The concerto transcriptions of Johann Sebastian Bach date from his second period at the court in Weimar (1708–1717).