The 16 concertos, arrangements of various instrumental concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, Telemann, Duke Joh. Ernst of Saxe-Weimar and others, were first published in print at 1850-1860. The cause and purpose of the transcriptions are not, as originally assumed, Bach's exercises in the then new Italian concerto style, but rather to be found in the practice of the time, which could not enjoy the new concerto style enough and sought to create the pleasurable interplay of solo and tutti itself on the harpsichord, especially as the registration possibilities here allowed the two bodies of sound to be emphasised sharply.