Symphony, Wq 182/5

The Allegretto opens softly, with the violins playing in imitation over repeated viola notes. The bass rests for two bars before the strings begin their first forte passagework. Short chromatic turns and fast runs pass back and forth between the first and second violins.

In 1773 Baron Gottfried van Swieten commissioned six string symphonies from Bach in Hamburg. Reichardt later recalled that under this commission Bach could write without regard for the difficulties the musicians would face.

The Larghetto is in 3/8. Its short, slurred violin phrases alternate with sudden forte answers, and Bach writes both diminuendo and crescendo into the score.

Before the symphonies went to van Swieten, Johann Friedrich Reichardt led a trial performance in 1774 at the Hamburg home of the mathematics professor Johann Georg Büsch. Bach was present. Forty years later, in an account published in 1814, Reichardt recalled the music’s bold ideas and unexpected turns.

The Presto sets short chords in the violins against running figures in the lower strings. Both of its two large halves are marked to be repeated, so the interruptions and sudden drops in volume come back before the closing bars.

The six symphonies were not published during Bach’s lifetime. In 1777 the Hamburg dealer Johann Christoph Westphal advertised manuscript copies, and Bach was angry that the works he had written for van Swieten were being offered for sale.