Bremner’s version of the [periodical] overture [XV] enjoyed a healthy longevity, judging from the records of the Edinburgh Musical Society. It was performed twice in 1768, once in 1769, and twice in 1770. Then, after a thirteen-year gap, the society played it again in 1783 and 1785.[1] Moreover, it is possible that it was presented any number of additional times; Bach was well represented in the programming traced by scholar Jenny Burchell, but many listings identify each work solely as “overture,” making it impossible to know what specific work was performed.

Unsurprisingly, given the Italian origin of the overture, Bach follows the structure of the customary operatic sinfonia. It is in three movements, in a typical fast-slow-fast tempo arrangement, and the middle movement is in the key of G, the subdominant of the outer movements’ D major tonality. Unlike Periodical Overture No. 1, Bremner retained the expanded scoring of Bach’s La Giulia overture: not only are the customary oboes replaced by flutes during the “Andante” movement, but in all three movements, the violas frequently are divisi, making this a symphony “in 9 Parts” at the very minimum, even if the woodwinds are counted as doubling.

The kinship between Italian symphonic practices and the increasingly famous “Mannheim School” is quite evident in Bach’s symphony. The first movement, marked “Allegro di Molto,” opens with a bold premier coup d’archet consisting of a staccato upward arpeggio and then a quick downward scalar cascade. Shortly after the opening phrase, which starts to be supported by “drum 8ths” in measure 4, Bach introduces measured tremolos (m. 6) that add to the robust spirit. The movement takes the unusual step of introducing the lyrical second theme (m. 41) in the dominant minor before shifting to its parallel major at measure 61. Bach also starts the second theme with a drop in dynamics to piano, and he withholds the oboes until measure 47. Structurally, the first movement is a sonata form without a development, which James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy call a “Type 1 Sonata.”[2] The recapitulation of the first theme begins at measure 67, while the second theme again opens in the tonic minor (m. 105). It performs an emphatic shift back to D major at measure 118, embellished with energetic horn arpeggios.

The “Andante,” like the first movement, is in common time, but the oboes have been replaced by flutes, and the horns are tacet. The gracious opening theme employs numerous Scotch snaps (which Bach would have probably called “Lombard rhythms”), supported by a rarely indicated “spiccato” articulation. In the first half of this binary form, the modulation to D major introduces a second theme (m. 8) that showcases a call-and-response between the flutes and violins, passing a triplet-sixteenth-note motif back and forth. The second half of the form (m. 20) is darker in character, using a new Lombard-rhythm theme and moving to the relative key of e minor. The return to G major (m. 31) ushers in a fourth theme, this time with the flutes initially doubling the violins. Another call-and-response passage (m. 39) draws the movement to a close.

Bach concludes the sinfonia with a typically gigue-like “Allegro” in a five-part rondo form. Set in 3/8 time, the rondo opens with a bouncy refrain (A) that moves in an upward direction, with the horns adding a good deal of rhythmic energy. The “B” episode (m. 9) is much quieter; the flutes gradually descend above a rather static string ensemble, while the horns are silent. The A refrain returns at measure 17, but this time in the dominant key of A major. The quiet C episode (m. 25) uses the violas—later joined by the flutes—to present another descending line, juxtaposed against upward arpeggios in the violins. The horns also add a pedal tone on A in the second half of the episode, building up anticipation for the return to D major. The final appearance of the refrain begins in measure 41, ending the movement (and the symphony) with a great deal of vigor.

Alyson McLamore

[1] Jenny Burchell, Polite or Commercial Concerts?: Concert Management and Orchestral Repertoire in Edinburgh, Bath, Oxford, Manchester, and Newcastle, 1730–1799, Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities, ed. by John Caldwell (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 309, 311, 324, 336, 342.

[2] James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 345.