Day 173
CPE Bach: Concerto for fortepiano harpsichord and strings
Collegium Aurem
Jos Van Immerseel
Eric Kelley
The next stage of this project will be devoted to exploring the music of the wider Bach family - repertoire of which I am almost completely unfamiliar. I start with CPE Bach, JSB’s third son. He was probably the most widely recognised of Bach’s sons. Indeed to a musician in the 1760s onward the name Bach almost certainly meant CPE.
He was at the forefront of the transition from the Baroque to the Classical style - the so called ‘style gallant’ This concerto is a late work -1788 - by which time his music was very much in the established classical idiom - indeed parts of the piece could be easily be mistaken for Mozart and, particularly in the last movement, Haydn. The choice of solo instruments also reflects changing tastes with the old-fashioned harpsichord and the modern fortepiano both having solo parts.
I knew this work existed but I had never heard it. I has assumed that CPE would have contrasted the different tones and capabilities of the two instruments - perhaps by giving the fortepiano more sustained melodic material and dynamic contrast - but he didn’t do that. The material for the two instruments is - to my eyes and ears - barely indistinguishable. Instead he obviously wanted to contrast the tones of the two instruments by them playing the same material in alternation, so that you could hear the difference. Whatever the reason the piece certainly works and I enjoyed it. The slow movement - quite long - is expressive in a very simple manner and the rondo finale is great fun with some very Haydnesque rhythmic and harmonic touches.
There’s lots more CPE to discover but for the moment I need to go onto hear music from his brothers and then the other family members.
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