The 18 Century Concerto jae E Cc. P. E. BACH Cello Concertos Tim Hugh, Cello Bournemouth Sinfonietta Richard Studt, ConductorCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714 - 1788) Cello Concertos Cello Concerto in A major, Wq 172 Cello Concerto in A minor, Wq 170 Cello Concerto in B flat major, Wq 171 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born in 1714 in Weimar, the second son by his first wife of Johann Sebastian Bach, then newly appointed Konzertmeister to the Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst. He attended the Latin School in Céthen, where his father became Court Kapellmeister in 1717, and in 1723 moved with the family to Leipzig, where he became a pupil at the Thomasschule, on the staff of which his father had become Cantor. In 1731 he matriculated as a law student at the University of Leipzig, embarking on a course of study that had been denied his father. He continued these studies at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder and in 1738, rejecting the chance of accompanying a young gentleman on a tour abroad, he entered the service of the Crown Prince of Prussia at Ruppin as harpsichordist, moving with the court to Berlin in 1740, on the accession to the throne of the Prince, better known subsequently as Frederick the Great. In Berlin and at Potsdam Bach, confirmed as Court Harpsichordist, had the unenviable task of accompanying evening concerts at which the King, an able enough amateur flautist, was a frequent performer. His colleagues, generally of a more conservative tendency, included the distinguished flautist and theorist Quantz, the Benda and Graun brothers and other musicians of similar reputation, while men of letters at the court included Lessing. In 1755 he applied for his father’s old position at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, but was unsuccessful, his father’s former pupil Doles being appointed in succession to Johann Sebastian immediate successor, Gottlob Harrer. It was not until 1768 that he was able to escape from a position that he had found increasingly 8.553298uncongenial, succeeding his godfather Telemann as Cantor at the Johanneum in Hamburg, a city that offered much wider opportunities than Leipzig. Bach spent the last twenty years of his life in Hamburg. In Berlin he had won a wider reputation with his Versuch tiber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (Essay on the True Art of Clavier Playing) and was regarded as the leading keyboard-player of his day. In Hamburg he continued to enjoy his established position as a man of wide general education, able to mix on equal terms with the leading writers of his generation and no mere working musician. He died in 1788, his death mourned by a generation that thought of him as more important than his father, dubbed “the old periwig”’ by his sons. As a composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was prolific, writing a considerable quantity of music for the harpsichord and the instrument he much favoured, the clavichord, His music exemplifies the theories expounded in his Versuch, with a tendency to use dramatic and rhetorical devices, a fine command of melody and a relatively sparing use of the contrapuntal elements that had by now come to seem merely academic. In musical terms he is associated with Lessing’s theories of sentiment, Empfindsamkeit, the complement of Enlightenment rationalism. The three Cello Concertos of Carl Philip Emanuel Bach are transcriptions of concertos originally written for harpsichord and strings and it was possibly because of the nature of his employment under Frederick the Great that he arranged these concertos first for flute and strings, following the arrangement with a further transcription for cello. Whatever their original form, the concertos remain fine examples of idiomatic virtuoso writing for the solo instrument. The transcriptions of the Concertos in A minor, A major and B flat major date apparently from 1750, 1751 and 1753 respectively. Cellists at the Prussian court at this time include Carlo Graziani, teacher of the King’s nephew, who succeeded his uncle in 1786 as Friedrich Wilhelm II and whose interest in the cello encouraged Haydn and Mozart to give it prominence in string quartets and Beethoven to compose sonatas for the instrument. 8.553298Each of the concertos is in three movements and each calls for considerable technical virtuosity, dexterity in the outer movements, with their demand for rapid passage-work, and a fine command of melodic line in the moving melodic contours of the central movements. They follow, in general, the manner of the Italian concertos for the instrument by composers such as Vivaldi, Porpora, Haydn’s mentor, and Leonardo Leo. It is particularly in the slow movements that the rhetorical element of Bach's Empfindsamerstil with its pent emotion and sensibility is evident, reminding us of his own teaching on the subject in his Versuch, insisting that the aim of music was to touch the heart of the hearer and thus should be ‘from the soul’, although this had to be without the excesses of a Marianne Dashwood in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility where emotion dominated reason, the exaggerated literary sensibility condemned by later writers and critics. 8.553298Tim Hugh The British cellist Tim Hugh established a flourishing career throughout Europe after winning two top prizes in the 1990 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, and now appears regularly with many of Europe's leading orchestras. In recent years he has toured Japan, Germany, Poland, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Italy, while in his own country he has performed with all the BBC orchestras as well as with the other major orchestras. Now joint principal cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra, he has performed with them Messagesquisse under Pierre Boulez, Don Quixote under Previn and Messiaen's Concerto & Quatre under Kent Nagano. Tim Hugh has made many recordings of chamber music and is now embarking on major recording projects with Naxos. These include the three C.P.E. Bach concertos, the twelve Boccherini concertos and major concertos in British cello repertoire. Bournemouth Sinfonietta Since its foundation in 1968, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta has established itself as one of the most versatile chamber orchestras working in Europe today. With a busy touring schedule of concerts across the South and West of England, elsewhere in the United Kingdom and abroad, a pioneering education and community programme and a commitment to music by living composers, the range of the orchestra’s work is unparalleled. Since 1989, the Principal Conductor has been the distinguished Hungarian-born pianist and conductor Tamas Vasary, who assumed the additional position of Artistic Director in 1992. 8.553298Richard Studt Richard Studt, Director and Associate Conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, a pupil of Manoug Parikian and winner of various prizes as a student at the London Royal Academy of Music, was for some ten years a violinist and soloist with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He was subsequently concert-master of the London Symphony Orchestra and directed the London Virtuosi, the Concertante of London and his own Tate Music Group, recording with the last of these five Vivaldi concerti, two of which were newly discovered. As a conductor he studied with Maurice Handford and received significant encouragement from Simon Rattle and from courses under Sergiu Celibidache. At the same time he continues his career as a violinist in classic repertoire on his Stradivarius instrument, the ‘Dolphus’, made in 1727. 8.5532988.553298 Cc. P. E. BACH: Cello Concertos 8.553298. STEREO es ANVINYAD “HOINDIN “ONIHOVHUALNN 80028-C “A ATIVH-OIZ DAM AAHO “SONVWWYOd wad OITHNd GASPHOHLAVNA ‘GaAuaSaY § a 2 SEES ° & 2 3 = Concerto in A Major, (5) Andante (8:44) 8 g Wq. 172 [6] Allegro assai (8:30) 2 55 [il Allegro 5:5 . ; 2 4 Li . ¢ ‘ 7) Concerto in B Flat Major, 2 38 ( Largo (10:14) = 5 88 [3] Allegro assai (4:39) q. 171 8 8 (7) Allegro (7:37) = =: Concerto in A Minor, (8) Adagio (8:28) g Wa. 170 [9] Allegro assai (6:07) [4] Allegro assai (10:17) Recorded at the Coade Hall, Bryanston School, Blandford Forum, England, ‘on 13th and Ith February, 1995. Producer: Chris Craker Engineer: Dave Harries 730099429825 CLP. E. BACH (1714 - 1788) Cello Concertos Tim Hugh, Cello Bournemouth Sinfonietta Richard Studt, Conductor $0}.19900D O99 ‘HOVE “Ad 'D SOXVN 86zESs's