Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 as concerto grosso: the first, third and sixth of these concertos have however no concertino versus orchestra distinction. The concerto grosso was a Roman invention, typically featuring two violins and a cello as concertino, with a string orchestra of multiple string instruments per part. Venetian composers seemed slow in adopting the genre, and as Bach and his German contemporaries rather turned to Venetian music they may have been hardly aware of it. The fifth "Brandenburg Concerto" seems intended to be performed with one instrument per part, as to not overpower the harpsichord with its relatively restrained volume, and was not
Province of Brandenburg the Bear, another Saxon count from the noble House of Ascania, who established the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157. His son Margrave Otto I already achieved the dignity of an Arch-Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Empire in 1177. Emperor Charles IV by the Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the electoral dignity of the Brandenburg margraves and in 1373 assigned the electorate to his son Wenceslaus in 1373. The Elector of Brandenburg held the seventh rank among the electors of the Empire and had five votes in the Council of Princes. In 1415 Brandenburg was acquired by Burgrave Frederick of Nuremberg,