Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven
Orchestra: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Conductor: Bernhard Forck
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Catalogue: HMM902420
Release: 2020
Size: 1.37 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Bach: Symphony in F major, Wq. 175 (H650)
01. I. Allegro assai
02. II. Andante
03. III. Tempo di Menuetto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21
04. I. Adagio molto. Allegro con brio
05. II. Andante cantabile con moto
06. III. Minuet. Allegro molto e vivace. Trio
07. IV. Finale. Adagio. Allegro molto e vivace
Bach: Symphony in F major, Wq. 183 / 3 (H665)
08. I. Allegro assai
09. II. Poco andante
10. III. Presto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36
11. I. Adagio molto. Allegro con brio
12. II. Larghetto
13. III. Scherzo. Allegro. Trio
14. IV. Allegro molto
Beethoven’s first two contributions to the symphonic genre reveal the bubbling creativity of the thirty-year-old composer. With the renewal of the genre, he was determined to push even further than the recent reference of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. Cleverly paired with two symphonies by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, another iconoclast, the music world changed forever with the very first chord of Beethoven’s Symphony No.1. Relive this decisive moment in the company of the Akademie für Alte Musik, under the guidance of their concertmaster Bernhard Forck.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was much admired by Haydn, Mozart, as well as young Beethoven, who piously treasured his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. The two men never met (Beethoven was eighteen when Johann Sebastian’s son passed away), but there are many affinities between them. Both of their works span the transition between two eras of music, and both shared a passion for harmonic exploration and formal studies, combined with a love of the bizarre. It was therefore only right to bring them together on the same album. In his first two symphonies, Beethoven created a world of his own, drawing on the relatively recent history of the musical form that Carl Philipp Emanuel and Joseph Haydn had helped to shape and develop fifty years earlier. Although the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Beethoven presented here have little in common, they have a similar air of audacity and novelty about them, traits which have been wonderfully showcased by the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin under the baton of their “konzertmeister”, Bernhard Forck. An exciting example of mirroring works released by Harmonia Mundi as part of its monumental Beethoven edition commemorating the composer’s birth and death dates (2020 and 2027).