Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 Another coincidence is that the concerto's middle movement is built on a theme composed by Marchand, as if Bach wanted to show off to his prospective competitor how he could elaborate that theme quite differently from its composer's original treatment. The possibility of a performance of the early version of the fifth "Brandenburg Concerto" in Dresden in 1717 was first tentatively proposed by harpsichordist and musicologist in the early 1990s. Although the hypothesis rests on a complex of circumstantial indications without direct evidence, it has been picked up by Bach scholars. Formally the fifth "Brandenburg Concerto" is a concerto grosso,
Brandenburg Concertos of a trio sonata for two violas and continuo, although the cello has a decorated version of the continuo bass line. In the last movement, the spirit of the gigue underlies everything, as it did in the finale of the fifth concerto. Because King Frederick William I of Prussia was not a significant patron of the arts, Christian Ludwig seems to have lacked the musicians in his Berlin ensemble to perform the concertos. The full score was left unused in the Margrave's library until his death in 1734, when it was sold for 24 groschen (as of 2014, about US$24)