CPE Bach: EMS 6 July

[doversoul1]

Piers Adams continues to celebrate CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace, where Emanuel Bach arrived as an optimistic 26 year old to join the court of Prussia's flute-playing King Frederick the Great.[…]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b048bh2r

[MickyD]

Ah, interesting..I had a lovely stroll around the palace one perishingly cold winter a few years ago. I had the place nearly all to myself..thick snow and ice outside in the gardens. There was a lone harpsichord in one room...would have been lovely to have heard some CPE Bach wafting from it!

[Roehre]

Thanks ds

For those listening: imagine a young and impressable Beethoven going through the Prussian Sonatas (CPE and LvB never met), and what he took from them in his own Kurfürsten-sonatas (WoO 47) and his op.2, 7 and 10 piano sonatas (next to Dussek and Clementi).
Mozart was not far of the mark: CPE was the father, Mozart and the others "only" his children.

[Tony Halstead]

CPE was the father, Mozart and the others "only" his children

Not forgetting Mozart's 'uncle' Johann Christian Bach of course

[Roehre]

Not forgetting Mozart's 'uncle' Johann Christian Bach of course

[gamba]

J.C. - MY favourite !

[Roehre]

J.C. - MY favourite !

Then Gamba you enjoyed JC being CotW a couple of weeks ago I guess

[doversoul1]

I very much enjoyed this EMS. Piers Adams’s presentation isn’t as dependable as Lucie’s or Catherine’s but that’s asking too much. He managed to draw out a lot of interesting comments and reference from the guests, in particular, I thought Natalie Pfeiffer (the harpsichordist) was excellent. Please can we have her as a guest or even as a guest presenter?

Adagio for Organ was deeply affective.

[Roehre]

I....
Adagio for Organ was deeply affective.

This music was in the collection of Gottlieb Neefe, Beethoven's first real tutor in Bonn

[jayne lee wilson]

I was going to start a CPE Bach thread, along the lines of CeePeeEeBeeThree-Oh-Oh or summat, but I guess I could tack it on here... so, I caught the CPE-Bug bigtime this year and three new releases were especially lovable:

CPE Bach "Empfindsamkeit" Symphonies and Concertos. Barrokkanerne/Bernadini/Kjos, LAWO CD

The wq 178 Oboe Concerto here is an absolute peach - the opening melody is like a serene summer smile & will haunt your head for days... equally memorable Harpsichord Cto wq 17, and two of the best Symphonies, 178 and 183/1, in unsurpassably expressive virtuoso performances... glowing reviews everywhere of this 1989-founded Norwegian group, brilliantly led by their wise & warm soloists - just buy it!

CPE Bach Hamburger Sinfonien wq 182 Stuttgarter Kammerorchester/Wolfram Christ, Hanssler CD

From the moment it goes on... it just sounds special - not just the usp of the fortepiano continuo, uniquely warm, full and singing out so fulfillingly as it does - but for the agility, fluidity and beauty of the strings themselves, led (on modern instruments) by Wolfram Christ, 20-years the lead violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker. My favourite is No.5, what's yours?

CPE Bach Sonatas for Violin & keyboard. Leila Shayegh/Jorg Halubek/PanClassics/SWR2 CD
Very adventurous (if rather closely-balanced) in its use of muted violin (playing forte against harpsichord) and "tangent piano", also beautifully recorded - some of these works are duplicated on the Hanssler/SWR disc with Breuniger/Kuijken - also very lovely but seems less sonoristically daring...( I bought before I noticed the duplication, but didn't want to send either back!)

Of earlier issues, that doyen of CPE Bach, Hartmut Haenchen with his Kammerorchester CPE Bach, has given me huge pleasure with his various recordings of the Symphonies, wq 182, 183 and some of the Berlin works 173 - 181 (recorded by Berlin Classics/Edel in the acoustically-gorgeous Christuskirche) ... all available since the 1980s on Berlin Classics, Cappriccio and Brilliant... and Cafe Zimmerman's Alpha CD (2005) of wq 182 1,3,5,6 and the Cello Cto wq 172 is another brilliantly virtuoso & expressive one-off!
Happy listening...

[jayne lee wilson]

I missed out this one, and it is very important as there are surprisingly few HIPPs recordings of the Berlin Symphonies -

CPE Bach Symphonies Wq 173, 174, 175, 178, 180. Les Amis de Philippe/Ludger Remy, CPO CD rec 1996

Not well known but a very fresh, urgent, open-textured set of performances, and far preferable to the recent one to avoid - the Lausanne CO with Christian Zacharias, very oldfashioned in its modern-intrument compacency, politeness and inappropriate leisure. "Beautiful" in quite the wrong way, it sounds like the soundtrack to a documentary about stately homes. As an "IRR Outstanding" (!) I tried to like it for three days... but sent it back. To Paris. Never were airmail costs better spent. Relieved to get it it out of the house..

[MickyD]

Wq 174/5 can be found on an excellent 2 CD set from The Academy of Ancient Music under Hogwood, along with six string symphonies.