The Right Stuff in 18th Century Music

 The Age of Extremes: Music by W.F. Bach, C.P.E. Bach & G. Benda

"We were exploring the frontiers, we were out at the edges of the flight envelope all the time, testing limits...."

- Neil Armstrong

The 18th century was a period of enormous change, with wild swings between reason and emotion, or, as Jane Austen had it, sense and sensibility. These swings are obvious in the music that came after the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750 and George Frideric Handel nine years later. It was Bach's son Carl Philip Emmanuel (CPE) who perhaps best exemplifies the new Empfindsamkeit (take your pick of sensibility, sentimentality or sensitivity) in German music. But CPE didn't reject the craft of his father to explore new emotional opportunities in music; rather, he adapted established forms but tested their limits.

Harpsichordist and conductor Francesco Corti has put together a fascinating programme of music by CPE, his brother Wilhelm Friedemann, and their Bohemian colleague Georg Anton Benda, that shows musical and emotional envelopes being pushed. There are hair-raising moments in this music: the Allegro second movement of WF Bach's Sinfonia in D minor begins with a fugal passage that explodes with energy, especially since it follows a melting Adagio that's almost the definition of Empfindsamkeit, looking back at Corelli and ahead to Mozart. And in his Variations on Les Folies d'Espagne, CPE becomes a musical test pilot and breaks the supersonic barrier. Corti shows his virtuoso chops here! Georg Benda's Harpsichord Concerto in B minor has its own surprises amidst its many felicities. Even the pretty and proto-romantic slow Arioso movement is revolutionary in the way it wears its heart on its sleeve. And the flighty Allegro finale, which ends this programme, wraps everything up. Barriers are down, genres are busted. And a good time was had by all.

The orchestral playing on this album is exemplary, as one would expect from the wonderful group Il Pomo d'Oro, who I know from their new complete Mozart symphonies project with conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. Corti plays a harpsichord made in 2001 by Keith Hill in Manchester MI, after an anonymous German instrument from around 1700. It has a robust sound, and is well balanced, not too forward but much easier to hear than in the bad old days of wimpy Early Music recording. This is such an enjoyable release, and highly recommended.

Here is the repertoire on the disc:

The great photo of Corti on the cover is by Leonardo Casalini.