BACH CARL-PHILIPP-EMANUEL

(CD) RECORDER CONCERTOS, CHAMBER MUSIC
"He is the father, we are the sons," said Mozart of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. This statement reveals just how venerated a figure the latter composer was in his day - to the extent that much of Haydn's musical apprenticeship was based on the study of his works. Today he is hailed as the forefather of the First Viennese School: a composer who was instrumental in the development of the empfindsamer Stil, which sought to express 'true' or 'natural' feelings in music. C.P.E. Bach is perhaps best known for his cultivation of the keyboard sonata...
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(30CD) C.P.E. BACH EDITION
Here's a rare opportunity for listeners to explore the extremely rich and varied oeuvre of a composer who achieved considerable renown in his own lifetime and was in fact much more highly regarded than his father - contemporaneous references always referred to him, rather than Johann Sebastian, as the 'great Bach'. The second eldest of four sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel's reputation declined somewhat during the course of the 19th century, when Mendelssohn's revival of his father's Matthew Passion fuelled a surge in appreciation for the master...
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(CD) TANGERE
Russian pianist Alexei Lubimov is the rare artist who has been a trailblazer in two directions, both a champion of new music (from Cage to Silvestrov) and a dedicated interpreter of Baroque music with a passion for period instruments. In this remarkable reading of music by CPE Bach, Lubimov responds to the inventiveness of the composer's fantasies, sonatas and rondos by making full creative use of the sonorities of the tangent piano. Briefly popular in the early 18th century, the tangent piano (whose strings are struck from beneath by wood...
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(CD) MAGNIFICAT
C.P.E. Bach is particularly renowned for his unrivalled piano sonatas in the sensitive style ('empfindsamer Stil'), and contributed to almost every important form of classical music, but he began to recognise the symphony as a medium of great expressive potential in the mid-18th century, and eventually wrote an impressive total of 19 works within this genre. Two splendid examples are presented here. The Symphony Wq173 owes its charm to small surprises such as a sudden shift to the minor key in the recapitulation of the first movement, but ...
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(CD) CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH
Brilliant Classics's generous celebration of one of 2014's principal anniversary composers continues with these three-movement 'symphonies' that may not yet have the breadth or weight that later composers of the Classical period would invest in the genre such as we know it now, but still move forward from the kind of pot-pourri sinfonia that would open an opera or function as an incidental intermezzo. In this, as in so much of his output, CPE Bach stands between periods, perhaps hitherto more appreciated for where his music leads than its ...
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(2CD) COMPLETE ORGAN MUSIC
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's interest in the organ would seem to be fairly limited, at least judging by the number of pieces he composed for the instrument. The reasons for this attitude could be personal and professional, but could also reflect the changing affections and the new sensibility of the period, since during his lifetime the organ underwent a phase of relative decline. Indeed, following the acme reached by Johann Sebastian Bach, the instrument sank into a phase of neglect in Germany during the second half of the 1700s. It was on...
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(CD) C.P.E. BACH: OBOE CONCERTOS
C.P.E. Bach's two surviving oboe concertos both began as keyboard concertos that were later transcribed for oboe; their intended performer was probably Johann Christian Fischer, a virtuoso based in Potsdam in the mid 1760s. This would perhaps account for their technical and immensely challenging solo lines, which suggest that, like his father, Carl Philipp Emmanuel revelled in pushing instruments and performers to their limits. The highpoints of both concertos are their slow movements, which feature music of such beauty and chromatic melan...
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(2CD) C.P.E. BACH CANTATAS
In 1768 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach succeeded his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann as director of music at Hamburg. The composer's new position allowed him to devote more of his energies to composing choral works; this release details a selection of these engaging compositions, written for the Protestant church services at the Michaeliskirche as well as elsewhere in the Saxon city. Emanuel was a product of the Enlightenment period, and his role as 'cantor and director of music' reflects the fundamental change in the philosophy of life and in...
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(2CD) DIE AUFERSTEHUNG UND HIMMELFAHRT JESU
In the second half of the 18th century the German oratorio was marked by two characteristics: the tendency toward a highly individualistic depiction of emotions, and the avoidance of dramatic, operatic plots. The lyrical depiction of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, rather than Old Testament stories, thus became the preferred subject matter for authors who wished to create morally uplifting texts. Wholly conforming to this new aesthetic, as promulgated by the Swiss professor Johann Georg Sulzer, is C.P.E. Bach's grandiose Die Aufe...
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(CD) CHAMBER MUSIC WITH TRANSVERSE FLUTE
During the last years of his life, CPE, not unlike his father, was not interested in following fashions or the market, his main aim being to leave posterity a meaningful musical heritage. In a letter written in 1787 he declared that he had concluded his 'work for the public and now wished to abandon the pen' not least because the desire to see certain works published that would 'bring him honour after his death' had been fulfilled by the publication in 1786 of the Zwey Litaneien Wq204 and in 1787 of the cantata Die Auferstehung und Himmelf...
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(CD) KEYBOARD SYMPHONIES
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 symphonie...
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(2CD) COMPLETE SOLO FLUTE SONATAS
Celebrating the Tricentenary of his birth, this new release presents Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's complete sonatas for flute solo and harpsichord. Passion and music went hand in hand in the Baroque era. Not only was music a way to express the passion of the composer, but it could also stimulate it in the listener. In this special collection of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach's complete solo flute sonatas, it is easy to hear how the composer kept his emotions close to the surface, as he pours into his works the joy and irritations of his daily ...
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(CD) SONATAS FOR VIOLA DA GAMBA AND BASSO CONTINUO
At first glance the combination of C.P.E. Bach and the viola da gamba may seem somewhat anachronistic. But the famous son of J.S. did write specifically for this instrument rather than for the by then -mid-eighteenth century- more common violoncello. These works, therefore are among the last in the gamba repertoire and represent its outer limits. The 'language' being a transition from the Baroque to the Classical style, the so-called Empfindsamkeit (sensitivity). The primary purpose of music thus being to "communicate, transmit and provoke...
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(5CD) SONATEN FUR KENNER UND LIEBHABER
The most boldly original and innovative of Johann Sebastian Bach's composer-sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel did not have to wait long, unlike his father, for public recognition. His music continued to be held in high esteem after his death, with composers such as Mozart and Mendelssohn making detailed studies of his style. Even Brahms took to editing a number of C.P.E. Bach's works. Emanuel composed in almost every genre except opera, but keyboard music is without doubt the most consistent thread running throughout his career, with more than 3...
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(10CD) THE SONS OF BACH
The Bach family of musicians comprises a dynasty that effectively spanned more than 200 years of composition. Johann Sebastian stands at the top of the hierarchy, but what do we know about the family's other members? This release offers us a chance to become acquainted with the work of the German maestro's four sons, revealing the ample talent of a generation that played a crucial role in further advancing music's development over the course of the 18th century. The collection begins with Carl Philipp Emanuel, the most boldly innovative a...
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(CD) BACH FAMILY: ORGAN MUSIC
The most famous scion of a musical family which stretched across at least ten generations, Johann Sebastian Bach had a very strong sense of history, tradition, and his evolving place in it, and was instrumental in curating and adding to the library of the music of the Bachs, which was known as the Altbachisches Archiv. This archive mostly comprises vocal music; now the Italian organist has created a fascinating instrumental counterpart, with short organ works by ten members of the family ranging from Heinrich Bach (1615--1692) to Wilhelm F...
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(3-CD SET) C.P.E. BACH: PREUSSISCHE UND WURTTEMBERGISCHE SONATEN
The keyboard sonatas of C.P.E. Bach (1714--1788) bear the hallmarks of a composer who lived through a significant moment in musical history; the fifth child of J.S. Bach, not only was Carl Philipp Emanuel employed at the court of Frederick the Great -- whose patronage and amateur music making remain legendary to this day -- he composed his works during the transition from the Baroque to the Classical period. His keyboard sonatas, in particular, are musical landmarks that epitomise the style and values of an era. The Preussische and Wurttem...
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