Learn to Play Recorder

Lesson 80: Advanced Ensemble, Part 2 — Baroque Ensemble and Bach's Fourth Brandenburg

  • Play a recorder part of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 against a recording of the full ensemble.
  • Move between solo voice and section-member roles within the same movement.

Bach gave two recorders a concerto next to a virtuoso violin. The recorders have to mean it.

In Brandenburg 4 two recorders share the soloist role with a solo violin against strings and continuo. The recorders are both solo (in dialogue with the violin) and ensemble (in tutti passages); moving between those modes within a single movement is the work of this lesson.

The opening figure

Read the part with the full score open; mark which bars are solo and which are tutti.

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Solo mode vs section mode

  • Solo mode — exposed with continuo, in dialogue with the violin: project, articulate clearly.
  • Section mode — doubling a string line or filling tutti texture: blend, match the strings, do not project.

Mark every transition in your score; a mode shift mid-phrase is common.

Drill — a solo passage

Practise this exposed passage as a solo.

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Drill — a tutti passage

Practise as if the strings were alongside — soft attack, blended articulation, no individual projection.

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Practice plan

Week 1 — learn your part as solo
Hardest-bar procedure on every exposed passage.
Week 2 — play against a recording
Check you blend in tutti and project in solo.
Week 3 — full movement performance, recorded
Listen back for whether the two modes read as distinct.

Now play these

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 — recorder parts
The piece of this lesson; the full score comes from your library or IMSLP.
Baroque Music for Recorder Ensemble
A Renaissance-style continuation of the consort work from Lesson 79.
Sammartini: Concerto in F major — Siciliana
A solo recorder concerto for further concerto practice.

When your Brandenburg 4 part plays against a recording with audibly distinct solo and section modes, move on to Lesson 81.