Classical Friday: J.S. Bach - The Brandenburg Concertos 1-3

I enjoyed the last classical Friday, so why not. Out of all classical music, Bach is where the heart is. Like I've said before, Grooveshark isn't well suited to finding classical music but I managed to eke out concertos 1-3 in order although once again I have no idea who is playing. They're good, though.

The Brandenburg concertos are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721. Most likely, Bach composed the concertos over several years while Kapellmeister at Köthen. Because King Frederick William I of Prussia was not a significant patron of the arts, Christian Ludwig seems to have lacked the musicians in his Berlin ensemble to perform the concertos. The full score was left unused (!) in the Margrave's library until his death in 1734, when it was sold for 24 groschen of silver (around $20 and there aren't enough exclamation marks in the world for this). The autograph manuscript of the concertos was only rediscovered in the archives of Brandenburg by Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849; the concertos were first published in the following year.