Bach Adagios

“The work of works” (Robert Schumann): “An everlasting treasure of the piano repertoire and piano pedagogy, almost without rival” (Dénes Bartha). Such is the high praise that has been lauded by musicians and music historians on Johann Sebastian Bach’s two-volume work in the nigh 300 years since it was written…

The works for wind sextet recorded here, his Sei Sinfonia, were published in London, posthumously, in 1782. The Sei Sinfonia adopt the structure of a Classical symphony with four movements in the usual order: opening allegros are in sonata form, followed by lovely, inventive adagios and either a minuet or a “march”, and ending with terse, quick movements, often in two. Stylistically we see Johann Christian Bach as a major proponent of the “galant” style, considered a move away from the contrapuntal restrictions of his father’s music and as a precursor to the Classical idiom of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

The son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Carl Philipp Emanuel, described his father’s Sonatas BWV 1014–1019 as among the best works his father ever wrote and continued to perform them extensively after his father’s death. This is music of implication and inference, the emotions no less real for their apparent lack of specificity. There is pleasure in the paradox: even without a text, the music sings.

Of the sons of J.S. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel was by far the most interesting composer, as the Sonatas and Rondos played here by Mikhail Pletnev amply demonstrate. Consider Pletnev's exhilarating CD of Scarlatti sonatas: the fact that he played them anachronistically on the piano was in no way allowed to interfere with their intrinsic spirit. Here, he repeats the trick. Employing plenty of pedal and the full dynamic force of a modern concert grand, he somehow creates a quintessentially 18th-century atmosphere. And they're amazing pieces–it's a fair bet that this outstanding disc will help usher them into the mainstream repertoire, where they belong. Bach wrote them for an audience of "connoisseurs and amateurs," but that audience must have been a very superior one. To label this style "pre-classical" is to woefully shortchange it.

Under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute, Ensemble Caprice is renowned for its innovative interpretations of baroque music. Centered around Bach’s aria Ich habe genug, this recording of adagios presents choral and orchestral pieces, mostly well-known to the general public, all having one element in common: they are all meditations on the fundamental questions of life and death. Throughout history composers have attempted to express the seemingly endless pain of human suffering through music. All performed on baroque instruments, the examples contained on this recording are among some of the most powerful explorations of this emotional space.

La Discotheque Ideale Classique brings together the masterpieces of 47 composers (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Ravel, Wagner …) performed by the greatest artists of the prestigious Erato-Warner Classics catalog. The 100 CDs of the box, which contain more than 100 hours of listening, allow you to rediscover the essential works of the classical repertoire.

La Discotheque Ideale Classique brings together the masterpieces of 47 composers (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Ravel, Wagner …) performed by the greatest artists of the prestigious Erato-Warner Classics catalog. The 100 CDs of the box, which contain more than 100 hours of listening, allow you to rediscover the essential works of the classical repertoire.