Violin Concerto in A minor (Bach)

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The Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041, is a violin concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach. It shows the influence of Italian composers such as Bach's older contemporary Vivaldi.

Bach is known to have studied Vivaldi's music from around 1714 when he was working at Weimar.<ref>Vivaldi's influence was discussed by Bach's first biographer Forkel in Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work.</ref> Italian influence can be seen in keyboard music he composed around that time. However, the date of the concerto is the subject of dispute as the original score has not survived. It could have been written at any of three locations:

Weimar. Most scholars think it was written after Bach left Weimar in 1717 (the violinist Template:Interlanguage link, who suggests it was written there,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Köthen. It is "generally thought to have been composed at Köthen".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Bach worked at the court there in the period 1717–23 and his duties included directing a small orchestra.
Leipzig. It could have been written at Leipzig, as the only autograph source to survive is a set of parts Bach copied out (along with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Ludwig Krebs, and an unknown copyist) in Leipzig Template:Circa from a now lost score or draft.<ref name=":0" /> Christoph Wolff has argued that the work may have been written during Bach's time as director of Leipzig's Collegium Musicum.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> John Butt takes a similar view, suggesting that Bach wrote it "probably soon after taking over the Leipzig Collegium Musicum in 1729".Template:Citation needed

Structure and analysis

The piece has three movements: Template:Ordered list A typical performance of the concerto takes around 15 minutes.

Publication

The concerto was published for the first time in 1852.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the 1870s Wilhelm Rust edited it for publication in the first complete edition of Bach's works.