Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

"Music, both vocall and instrumental, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like." - Thomas Coryat, after hearing 3 hours of music at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, 1608.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

A classic presentation of the riches of Bach's sons


This reissue of the Bach Sons album originally released in 1989 is welcome; it's been a favourite of mine over the years. Concerto Köln had only been in existence a few years at that point, and both the repertoire and the style in which it was played was not as mainstream as it has since become. The album represented considerable work in the area of music historical scholarship. Scores came from obscure sources around the world, including, in the case of the D minor Sinfonia of J.C.F. Bach, in the Moravian Church archives in Bethlehem PA. What impresses one the most about this collection is the amazing range of styles included, from the light, galante Sinfonia of "the English Bach", Johann Christian, to the more erudite works of CPE and Wilhelm Friedemann, to the full-on Sturm und Drang power of my favourite Bach son, Johann Christoph Friedrich or JCF. This Andante Amoroso middle movement of his D minor Symphony has an almost Mozartian sound:

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