Cpe Bach Symphonies Akademie Für Alte Musik

Symphonies & Concertos in HM Gold series is the second entry among a pair of excellent C.P.E. Bach discs by the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, recorded in the late '90s. To be fair, of the two this is probably the lesser release, although that's not by a margin of very much; one wishes Raphael Alpermann's harpsichord was a little louder in the Concerto in C major H. 654/Wq. 20, but that's about the only inequity between this and the other disc. This concerto appears along with the "first" cello concerto and three additional symphonies; Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, handles all of these works with an unbridled, no-holds-barred exposition of this Bach's sense of aggression and otherness, yet with crisp, precise playing that remains exceptional in its energy and drive.

Bach's second son didn't write a great many symphonies, but all of them are good, and well worth hearing. As a composer, CPE has fallen between the cracks of musical history. Neither baroque nor fully classical, he's seen as a "transitional" figure, which is, musically speaking, like telling someone that they are "a little pregnant." The implication is that his style is somehow unformed or impure, when in truth it's both highly developed and utterly personal. As you can clearly hear in these excellent performances, CPE had his own things to say and a unique way to say them, and the fact that he wasn't Haydn or Mozart doesn't make his music one bit less interesting or enjoyable.

The Berlin public of the mid-Eighteenth Century was fascinated by the ‘original genius’ of C. P. E. Bach and never tired of listening to his concertos. These works call for a talented soloist capable of mastering the multiple facets of an original and finely worked musical texture: a challenge taken up with panache (and on a period instrument) by the oboist Xenia Löffler, surrounded by her distinguished colleagues of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

Cleverly paired with two symphonies by C.P.E. Bach – written in 1755/56 and 1775/76 respectively – Beethoven’s first two contributions to the symphonic genre reveal the bubbling creativity of a thirty-year-old composer determined to go even further in the renewal of the genre than another, very recent reference, Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’. So much is clear from the very first chord of his Symphony no.1! Relive this decisive moment in the company of the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, under the guidance of their Konzertmeister Bernhard Forck.