The Reinhardt-South-Grappelli Recordings of J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. A Critical Edition

The two versions of the first movement from the D-minor Concerto for Two Violins (BWV 1043), recorded in Paris in 1937, by the violinists Eddie South, Stéphane Grappelli and the guitarist Django Reinhardt, are among the earliest preserved jazz renditions of a J.S. Bach composition. These recordings document not only a fusion of musical genres, but also a meeting between three performers of diverse nationalities and ethnicities: South was a black American, Grappelli a white Frenchman of partially Italian ancestry, and Reinhardt a Belgian-born Manouche Romani (Western European “gypsy”). Their collaboration evinces a fluidly complex relationship between their social backgrounds and their music that is not easily reconcilable with some of the more inflexible ways race and culture have traditionally been theorized in critical discourse on jazz. In this book these recordings are transcribed in full score, both for performing and musicological/analytical ends.