Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his fifth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1050.2 (formerly 1050),[1] for harpsichord, flute and violin as soloists, and an orchestral accompaniment consisting of strings and continuo.

On 24 March 1721 Bach dedicated the final form of the concerto to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg.

A specific idiom for violin solo passages in such concertos, for instance a technique called bariolage, had developed.

The tutti passages of these concertos, that is where the whole orchestra joins in, were characterised by a ritornello theme which was often quite independent of the thematic material developed by the soloist(s).

A point of comparison for such chronologies are for instance cantata movements in concerto form, for many of which the time of origin can be established more accurately.

This practice is for instance also found in Bach's rather French than Italian orchestral suites, e.g. in BWV 1067, but only in this movement in his concertos.

The typical Italian violino principale (violin soloist) being combined with a typical French traversière (transverse flute) in the concertino also seems to indicate Bach's aim to unite different backgrounds in the concerto, but without making it so crude that these instruments would perform in their respective national styles.

Another French element in the concerto's closing movement is the gigue theme which opens it, close to a theme used by Dieupart, and which Bach develops in a French fashion comparable to a similar passage in one of his orchestral suites, in this case the first movement of BWV 1069.

The many instances of five-part writing in the concerto's final movement may be seen as another approach with a typical French connotation in the early 18th century.

BWV 1050a (1050.1), the extant early version of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto, survives in a manuscript copy, consisting of performance parts, which was produced between 1744 and 1759.

Although the hypothesis rests on a complex of circumstantial indications without direct evidence, it has been picked up by Bach scholars.

Throughout the concerto tutti and solo passages are differentiated by indications for the harpsichord performer: The first movement has the structure of an elaborate ritornello form, in the style of an early 18th-century Italian violin concerto movement, but with the harpsichord in the leading role among the soloists.

The final movement has a da capo form, with the leading melody in the tutti passages mostly performed by the violin and flute in unison, which is a French stylistic characteristic.

The identical opening and closing tutti passages are in B minor, with the violin playing the leading melody line.

[13] The harpsichord takes the lead in the intermittent solo episodes: the harpsichordist's right hand, accompanied by a bass line in the left hand and some figuration by the other concertato instruments, variates on the tutti material in soloist episodes varying from five to eleven bars in length.

Additionally, while some of the harpsichord's melodies involve sustained notes (which would not sound for a long enough time if the movement is played too slow), Bach may have wanted to accelerate the pace a bit by the new tempo indicator.

ms. Bach St 131 are manuscript copies of the concerto realised during the composer's lifetime, in 1721 and around the 1730s respectively, after the autographs of the final version.

[17] In this period Bach's autograph score and performance parts of BWV 1050 were owned by Johann Kirnberger and the composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel respectively: by the middle of the 19th century both manuscripts were in the possession of the Berlin State Library, the former via Kirnberger's pupil Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia and the Joachimsthal Gymnasium, and the latter via Georg Poelchau [de].

[19] Siegfried Dehn's first edition of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto, based on the autographs in the Berlin State Library, was published by C. F. Peters in 1852.

[23] Arnold Schering's score edition of the concerto was based on the BG version and was published by Eulenburg in the late 1920s.

[24] Around 1925 Eusebius Mandyczewski provided a continuo realisation for the concerto, which was edited by Karl Geiringer for a publication of the score by Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag.

[26] Heinrich Besseler was Bärenreiter's editor for the Brandenburg Concertos in the New Bach Edition (Neue Bach-Ausgabe, NBA).

[27] Previously, Bärenreiter had also published performance material of the concerto with a continuo realisation by Günter Raphael.

[28] Bärenreiter published Alfred Dürr's edition of the early BWV 1050a version of the concerto, with a preface by Besseler, in 1964.