L'arpa Festante, Christoph Hesse Johann Christoph Pez: Duplex Genius (2024)

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–95) was the third of the musical “sons of Bach” in order of birth, but he has been overshadowed by his older brothers Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emmanuel, and his younger sibling, Johann Christian. The neglect is perhaps understandable. JCF was the least individual of the lot in personality and the most subject to outside influences (even by his younger brother). He spent most of his career in a small and backwater court, at Buckeburg, subject to the whims of his princely employer—though he was able to work there with the distinguished poet and linguist Johann Gottfried Herder.

A contemporary of Mozart, Johann Christoph Vogel also died at an early age. Forward looking in approach, this composer of a tormented disposition, sought to extend the operatic revolution undertaken by Gluck in the 1770s. First performed in 1786 at the Opéra de Paris, 'La Toison d’or' reveals that search for an expressive art which demanded an all-embracing involvement from the performers and supplied the music with a sometimes unbearable intensity for audiences of the time.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach - Freiburger Barockorchester - Concerti
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 352 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Carus # 83.306 | Country/Year: Germany 2010
Genre: Classical | Style: Early Classical Period

…I was not expecting this music to be especially interesting. Instead I have found delight and surprise, not so much at the playing - I always knew that the Freiburg would offer a big commitment to the music - but at JCF’s material which certainly catches and holds the attention. His ideas are lively and clearly sprung from a fresh and fecund musical imagination. This disc will add considerably to your musical knowledge and enjoyment.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach was a child of his times, which were characterised by new beginnings and profound changes in the political and cultural arena as well as in the societal and philosophical spheres. The “Miserere” and the motet “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” on this recording beautifully document these transformations. MDG is now presenting an archive production that has achieved historic status. Hermann Max, a pioneer in the field of historically informed performance practice, performs with the Rheinische Kantorei and his “Das Kleine Konzert” ensemble in a production for the Western German Radio (WDR).

Bach’s youth was a vast field of observation. From the years of apprenticeship in Ohrdruf, where his precocious artistic sensibility was dazzlingly demonstrated, to his first major post as organist at Arnstadt, Bach constantly enriched his musical culture, underpinned by a strong family tradition and driven by iconic respect for the old masters, crucial affinities and unfailing curiosity. As the prelude to a complete recording of a new kind, the eloquence and vigilant intelligence of the admirable Benjamin Alard’s playing are the ideal medium to reveal the technical mastery of Bach’s early keyboard works and convey the essence of this young composer’s musical discourse at a time when he was already measuring himself against the yardstick of predecessors and contemporaries alike.