Bach Beethoven

“The whole conception of performance in these days is too heavy, loud and blatant,” said Walter Gieseking in 1926, expressing his preference for “more delicacy and ethereal refinement of tone”. That same year the New York Times praised the German pianist for “achieving unusual richness and fineness of effect within a relatively small dynamic scale,” noting “his poetic sentiment and imagination, the intimacy of his musical expression and his exquisite adjustment of tone values.” Gieseking’s finesse, imagination and sureness of touch brought him special and lasting distinction in the solo piano works of Debussy et Ravel, which he recorded in their entirety.

He is one of the "superstars" of the piano world. An exceptional teacher – his pupils include stars such as Arcadi Volodos or Claire-Marie Le Guay – Dmitri Bashkirov’s debut with Claves combines a most original programme with orchestra. Face to face; we have: Johann Sebastian Bach’s most famous son; Carl Philip Emanuel; forbearer of the great Romantic composers; and an unusual Ludwig van Beethoven. This particular Concerto op. 61a is indeed very rarely played; copying almost note for note the original score of the Violin Concerto op. 61.

The Danish String Quartet’s Grammy-nominated Prism project links Bach fugues, late Beethoven quartets and works by modern masters. In volume two of the series, Bach’s Fugue in Bb minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster) is brought together with Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130 and Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No.3 (composed in 1983). As the quartet explains, “A beam of music is split through Beethoven’s prism. The important thing to us is that these connections be experienced widely. We hope the listener will join us in the wonder of thee beams of music that travel all the way from Bach through Beethoven to our own times.”

Astounding debuts and legendary piano treasures on disc: newly remastered albums of 21 pianists from the analogue era, including many first-ever digital transfers.

The third volume of the Danish String Quartet’s ongoing Prism series, which shows how the radiance of Bach’s fugues is refracted through Beethoven’s quartets to illuminate the work of later composers. “Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach,” the Danes note, “and exploded everything into myriads of different colours, directions and opportunities – much in the same way as a prism splits a beam of light.” Here the quartet follow the beam from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugue in c-sharp minor through Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet no.14 to Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No.1.

This Sony-made 30CD classical music collection covers almost all classical music, from the early Baroque period represented by Bach to the schools of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms represent romantic, national and even modern musical schools led by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, etc. representative, everything wonderful and vivid.

The genesis of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony Number 3 in E-Flat Major, the “Eroica”, has long been brought into connection with the composer’s early admiration for Napoleon. Indeed, Beethoven had initially intended to entitle the work “Bonaparte”, but he withdrew the dedication when the Corsican, as First Consul of a military-backed republic, crowned himself emperor on 2 December 1804. Nonetheless, Beethoven did complete the composition, which is influenced by both French Revolution music and Bachian polyphony, and the first movement is indeed heroic in character. As such, we may assume that Beethoven, while torn between cosmopolitan notions and Austrian patriotism, still held fast to the revolutionary ideals of “liberty, equality, fraternity”. At the same time, the second movement, a funeral march, shows that he equally wished to commemorate the victims of conflict and war, thus giving form to the dark side of the “heroic” story.

This new release opens with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs Symphony in F major, Wq. 183/3. This symphony belongs to a group of four Orchestral Symphonies with Twelve Obbligato Parts, which were commissioned by an unidentified patron in 1775. Next, this release presents Joseph Haydns Symphony No. 39. This work is the first of Haydns minor key symphonies and is associated with his Sturm und Drang period. Finally, Beethovens Symphony No. 1 in C major rounds out this release. The work was dedicated to an early patron of Beethoven, Baron Gottfried van Swieten. This work is a clear indication of Haydns influence on Beethoven.

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.