Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 the concerto to the set of "Brandenburg Concertos" in 1721 he had reworked it for a two-manual harpsichord, expanding the accompaniment with an additional cello part. Because of the limited input of the violin and flute solo parts, as compared to that of the harpsichord, the concerto can be seen as a harpsichord concerto, moreover, the first harpsichord concerto ever written. Nonetheless, the structure of the concerto and the soloist material of the harpsichordist are greatly indebted to violin concertos such as Vivaldi's "Grosso mogul" (which Bach had transcribed for organ, BWV 594) and Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar's G major
Brandenburg Concertos of silver. The autograph manuscript of the concertos was only rediscovered in the archives of Brandenburg by Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849; the concertos were first published in the following year. The manuscript was nearly lost in World War II, when being transported for safekeeping to Prussia by train in the care of a librarian. The train came under aerial bombardment, and the librarian escaped the train to the nearby forest, with the scores hidden under his coat. In the modern era these works have been performed by orchestras with the string parts each played by a number of players,