![]() ![]() ![]() How do we account for the fact that the musical language of these sonatas is so completely different from that of the High Baroque which supposedly had another six or so years to flourish? Are our categories even relevant? Have we decided to ignore some truly great music because of our inability to question our simplified model of music history? Simply put, what are we missing out on? So what are we to make of C P E Bach’s ‘Württemberg’ sonatas? Written in 1742–3 (and published in 1744, with a dedication to the composer’s former student the Duke of Württemberg), before J S Bach had composed a number of his important late works, they are too well written, too convincing and too beautiful to be categororized merely as manifesting a transition from one great period to another. To deal with the messy period in-between a host of often unsatisfactory and stopgap terms have been invented: ‘transitional’, ‘Rococo’, and-the worst of them-‘pre-Classical’. According to the most simplified form of this view, the Baroque is meant to end with the death of J S Bach-an atypical composer for the period in any case-in 1750, and then the Classical Age comes to maturity with the later symphonies and quartets of Haydn sometime around 1770. The music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach provides valuable food for thought when considering the overly simplistic divide between the ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’ periods, itself resulting from a modern standardization of performed repertoire. This is an excellent recording and it can be thoroughly recommended’ (International Record Review) » More ![]() In lesser hands the movement would fall to bits, but Esfahani makes coherence out of apparent incoherence, manages to get the music to hang together and establishes dramatic momentum, displaying an authoritative understanding of Bach’s rhetoric … As for his playing, in the best sense it is anything but unpredictable: sure-minded and vividly realized, it holds the attention with ease and is a pleasure to hear. 6 is an operatic scena in all but name, a recitative keenly characterized by tonal contrast as well as by-phrases that peter out with little real continuity or resolution. CPE BACH MANUALBach’s six keyboard sonatas … are models of the unconventional, exploratory in many respects, and exemplars of the empfindsamer Stil that gave voice to the expressive concerns of a number of European composers in the mid-eighteenth century … Bach’s guiding interest in the artistic sensibilities that produced such movements as Sturm und Drang is clearly evident in music of frequently changing mood and affekt, and it is this sense of the unsettled, of not quite knowing what’s being aimed for or where the music is heading, that makes his music at once so interesting and so difficult to interpret well … The many sudden dynamic changes in the ‘Württemberg Sonatas’ Esfahani has to achieve on the harpsichord through changes of manual or by adding or subtracting registers, and the sureness with which he does it, especially mid-phrase and at speed, with barely a breath between them, is impressive … The ‘Württemberg Sonatas’ … need a virtuoso interpreter not only to bring off the more showy aspects of the writing-which Esfahani does with strong-fingered assurance-but also to make sense of the inherent strangeness of other parts of the music. ‘Esfahani's debut solo recording is of music that, appropriately enough, boldly breaks rank in pursuit of new ideals. Mahan writes in his booklet notes that ‘Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach makes the most combative statement possible to assert his new musical language’. The sonatas range stylistically from initial stirrings of Sturm und Drang in keyboard music to sublime imitations of the human voice, with nods to the High Baroque and the idiom of CPE Bach’s more famous father. Here Mahan Esfahani has recorded CPE Bach’s six ‘Württemberg’ sonatas, which were written in 1742–3 and published in 1744, and his thrillingly intense performances make the best possible case for this dramatic, beautifully written, endlessly imaginative but for some reason under-performed music. He was the first harpsichordist to be named a BBC New Generation Artist or to be awarded a fellowship prize by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. Hyperion is delighted to present the debut recording of the wonderful young harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. ‘Such virtuosity and disarming presentation suggests that Esfahani could inspire a whole new appreciation of the instrument’ ( The Guardian) ‘This Iranian-American has carved out a niche as his instrument’s leading champion … his success is founded on remarkable artistry’ ( International Piano) ![]()
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