C.P.E. Bach: Keyboard Symphonies

Chezzi, Andrea

94839

A curious and unsatisfying reduction of huge music for tiny forces? By no means. These are not, after all, symphonies in the way that Beethoven, let alone Mahler, understood the term, but breezy three-movement affairs which had lately sprung out of an operatic context and were enjoying a new and independent life through the always-unpredictable idiom of C.P.E., who wrote eight such works between 1741 and 1762. Most of them began as symphonies for strings, with wind parts added later when Bach’s orchestra was enlarged. These early symphonies mixed an Italian style of pleasant and simple writing with the composer’s own evolving voice influenced by the Empfindsamer Stil, drawn together by the impeccable technique which C.P.E. had learnt at the feet of his father, the great Johann Sebastian.

Works:
• Bach, C P E: Sinfonia in E minor, Wq. 122/3 (H115)
• Bach, C P E: Sinfonia in F major, Wq. 122/2 (H104)
• Bach, C P E: Sinfonia in G major, Wq. 122/1 (H45)
• Bach, C P E: Symphony in D major, Wq. 176 (H651)
• Bach, C P E: Symphony in E minor, Wq. 178 (H653)
• Bach, C P E: Symphony in F major, Wq. 175 (H650)
• Bach, C P E: Symphony in G major, Wq. 173 (H648)

CD x 1

Brilliant Classics

2019-11-13

5028421948393