How Bach’s ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos Upend The Social Order

Bach scholar Michael Marissen observes that, throughout the set, the composer has solo instruments do things that, in the accepted order of things at the time, those instruments simply didn’t do. (Marrissen couches the argument in Christian terms — “the lowly shall be exalted while the exalted shall be brought low” — which is almost always a safe approach with J.S. Bach.) — The New York Times