CPE Bach From 23 May

[doversoul]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010nttb

This is more like it.

I do appreciate Donald Macleod’s effort but I can’t honestly say that what I heard of Gershwin's forgotten musicals were terribly exciting.

Perhaps JC Bach again one week?

[ardcarp]

Doversoul: I've only heard bits of the Gershwin this week, but have appreciated the biog info.

Here's the CPE Bach header:

Imagine being JS Bach's son, growing up in a gigantic shadow with a great weight of expectation on your shoulders, and trying to earn a living as a composer. These days, almost inevitably, the career of Carl Philip Emmanuel, Johann Sebastian's second son - and those of the other Bach children - are almost entirely obscured by the reputation of their father. But CPE Bach is the man of whom Mozart said, "he is the father, we are the children. Those of us who know anything at all learned it from him".

This week, Donald Macleod discovers that there's more to CPE Bach than his famous name. In Monday's programme, CPE finds a job at the court of the famously belligerent Frederick the Great of Prussia. When Frederick wasn't busy annexing parts of Europe, he liked nothing better than to play the flute, so an important part of CPE Bach's duties was to provide pieces for the king to perform, and to accompany him when he did. Music in the programme includes the Concerto for Flute in D minor, and an organ sonata written for Frederick's equally musical sister, Anna Amalia.

[MickyD]

This should make for great listening - CPE Bach is still, in my opinion, scandalously underrated. When I first heard his music in the 1970s it was like an electric shock for me!

[Serial_Apologist]

I am enjoying this run of programmes immensely. Thus far, the music has been still very much in the Baroque style CPE Bach inherited from his dad, and there has been little sign of the dramatic change in idiom to come, and which I await with baited breath. As one who is folrever fascinated by the points at which marked change in the language of music takes place - Monteverdi and the transition from polyphopny to homphony; that from late romatnicism to modernism etc - I feel COTW devotes less time these days to the formal aspects of music than it once did, going more for the biographical. But it is fascinating to hear how he defended his father when judgements were made as to the superiority of Handel's abilities in the area of fugue, having previously imagined CPE would have brushed the matter aside as of no longer importance.

S-A

[aeolium]

Yes - very enjoyable so far. I think there was evidence in the first programme of a Sturm und Drang quality in the wonderful Flute Concerto in D minor, with its tempestuous last movement - as if CPE wanted to shock his flute-playing patron Frederick the Great ("if you call yourself Great, play that!") The Magnificat which we heard today is also a lovely work.

[Serial_Apologist]

The Magnificat which we heard today is also a lovely work.

Yes - with a magnificent fugal ending

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

couldn't agree more, a real must listen hour every day ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thanks for an excellent week of programmes .... already a fan of CPE i found myself bouncing around the room at the discoveries of pieces new to me ... exactly what R3 does supremely well ...

[doversoul]

thanks for an excellent week of programmes .... already a fan of CPE i found myself bouncing around the room at the discoveries of pieces new to me ... exactly what R3 does supremely well ...

The Double Concerto for harpsichord, fortepiano and orchestra: what an enlightening and exciting work to conclude this excellent programme!! Radio3 at its best.

[MickyD]

The Double Concerto for harpsichord, fortepiano and orchestra: what an enlightening and exciting work to conclude this excellent programme!! Radio3 at its best.

The first version of this lovely piece I heard was that by Gustav Leonhardt, recorded back in the late 60s. I find it rather moving, a sort of affectionate farewell to the harpsichord and welcome to the newly-emerging fortepiano. Happily there have been quite a few other versions since, many of which I have collected.