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Bachs Brandenburg concerto no. 5

I listened to three different performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 from the twentieth century. Even though these were essentially the same movement, each sounded very different. I listened to the first performance recorded in 1950, the second recorded in 1968 and the fourth recorded in 1987. Beside from small differences within each piece, I found that a major pattern is as that the century progressed, the tempo of each piece increased. This is also obvious because the first piece lasts about fourteen minutes and the last is about nine minutes.
Other things I noticed were that the second performance used a cello and the fourth used a harpsichord. The use of different instruments gave the pieces different feels. I thought that the fourth sounded more chaotic at times when the mus...

Posted by: Margaret Rowden

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