Bach ❤ Vivaldi

Already at the age of fifteen, Johann Ernst, son of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, was studying law in the Netherlands. As a music-lover – and creditable composer – he could really indulge himself there. For instance, he got Vivaldi’s brand-new opus 3 L’estro armonico hot off the press, which caused a true sensation once back in Thüringen. After receiving the score from Johann Ernst and being blown away by the virtuoso concertos of ‘the red priest’, Bach lost no time in setting his own hand to the revolutionary genre. When the young prince fell fatally ill shortly after his return, Bach incorporated a bit of a theme from Vivaldi’s concerto grosso in D minor into his cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis; a reference that the future duke would have recognised immediately. A few years later, Johann Ernst’s own violin concertos in the style of Vivaldi were published.