Bach in the 20th Century

– Arvo Pärt: Wenn Bach Bienen gezüchtet hätte… – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Flute Concerto in D minor – Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 – Igor Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks Concerto

What do living classic of Estonian music Arvo Pärt and Russian globetrotter Igor Stravinsky have in common? Johann Sebastian Bach – at least at the March concert of the Radio Symphony Orchestra at Studio 1. The concert kicks off with Pärt's curiously titled If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper... based on the motif B-A-C-H (the German notation for B flat-A-C-B), which buzzes through the whole orchestra.

The evening concludes with Stravinsky's neoclassical Dumbarton Oaks Concerto, reminiscent of the Baroque concerto grosso, specifically Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. One of them, the extremely virtuosic Concerto No 4 for two flutes and a solo violin, along with the Flute Concerto in D minor by Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, round out the programme into a diverse whole.