The final, revised version of this concerto, however, was first performed in East Berlin on 9 December 1985, by the Dresden Chamber Orchestra with Manfred Scherzer [de] conducting.
[The concerto] begins 'beautifully', neo-classically but after some minutes the museum explodes and we stand with the fragments of the past (quotations) before the dangerous and uncertain present.
Even if not, the great figures of the past cannot disappear... Their shadows are more capable of life than the pantheon scrum of today.The first movement consists of two opposing sections: the "museum" (tonality) and the "uncertain present" (atonality).
From this point onwards, the BACH motif keeps repeating and its intervallic content collapses and keeps pushing all instruments to their lower pitch.
[5] The multiple references to the BACH motif lead to a chaconne-like movement where chord progression keep repeating and expanding.
Each instrument starts to progressively slow down and, as in the third movement, the entrance of the D pedal signals the eventual collapse of the atonal material.