One of the outstanding virtuosos of his age, Johann Sebastian Bach composed music for organ and harpsichord throughout his life. The five keyboard pieces on tonight’s program—heard in modern arrangements for string orchestra similar to those that Bach himself might have made—attest to the sophistication of his technique as both composer and performer. Bach’s keyboard playing, like his music, reflected a synthesis of the “learned” and heavily contrapuntal German idiom; the melodious, extraverted Italian style; and the French penchant for florid, speech-like arioso. He studied and admired the works of François Couperin and his fellow claveciniste composers, whose harpsichord music demanded exceptional lightness and evenness of touch.

Although the organ was Bach’s principal instrument, he was also an accomplished violinist and violist. In his later years, he was often to be seen at Zimmermann’s coffeehouse in Leipzig, conducting the resident Collegium Musicum ensemble from the concertmaster’s stand. The three concertos that Les Violons du Roy will perform date from this period of the composer’s life. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach told his father’s biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, that his father “understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments.” The younger Bach quoted an eminent violinist of the time as saying that “he had seen nothing more perfect for learning to be a good violinist and could suggest nothing better to anyone eager to learn” than Bach’s six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.