C.P.E. Bach - Virtuoso Cello Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The recipient of the 2012 City of Leipzig Bach Medal, Masaaki Suzuki has earned an enviable reputation as an interpreter of the music of J. S. Bach - as a reviewer in Int'l Record Guide has put it 'With Suzuki you can hear Bach's heart beat'. To a wide audience he is known as the director of Bach Collegium Japan, and the moving force behind the ensemble's acclaimed recordings of Bach's complete sacred cantatas. Perhaps less well known is that he began his career - at the age of 12! - playing the organ at church services in Kobe, where he was born. Suzuki has remained true to the organ throughout his life, and for BIS he has previously recorded Bach's German Organ Mass, as well as programs of Buxtehude and Sweelinck. He here appears on a disc combining some of Bach's best-loved works for the instrument, including the D minor Toccata and Fugue, the Partitas on 'O Gott, du frommer Gott', BWV 767, the Canonic Variations, BWV 769, and the celebrated Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548. The recording was made in Groningen's Martinikerk, with Suzuki performing on one of the Netherlands' most important and impressive organs.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was Johann Sebastian Bach's second and most successful son. He was a transitional figure between the Baroque and the Classicism, and greatly influenced Mozart and Beethoven, partly thanks to his keyboard sonatas. In the 18th century, the cello concerto was still a fairly new genre, and Boccherini and Haydn had not yet written their contributions at the point when C.P.E. Bach completed his, the three concertos written between 1750 and 1753. The tempestuous drama of the openings and the carefree candour of the finales stand in stark contrast to the tenderness and emotional depth of the slow parts. The renowned Belgian cellist Roel Dieltiens and the legendary Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century reveal themselves to be born raconteurs, turning this music into fascinating, colourful stories. The edition includes a beautiful essay by the popular novelist Anna Enquist, a long-time friend of the Orchestra and of the late Frans Brüggen, in which she takes her experience visiting the recording sessions of this album in Amsterdam as a departure point to explore the musical personality of Carl Philipp Emanuel, especially when seen in relation to his father's œuvre.

Cellist Guy Fishman releases a follow up to his critically acclaimed Vivaldi Concertos on Olde Focus with this recording of the concerti of C.P.E. Bach. Along with his colleagues from the Handel and Haydn Society, Fishman's performance underscores the angularity, unpredictability, and most of all unique creativity of this music by J.S. Bach's unconventional son. Guy Fishman is the principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society, with which he made his Symphony Hall solo debut in 2005. He is in demand as an early music specialist in the United States and in Europe, performing in recital with some of the biggest names on the early music and classical scenes. His playing has been praised as InchplangentInch by the Boston Globe, InchelectrifyingInch by the New York Times, and Inchbeautiful... nobleInch by the Boston Herald. The Boston Musical Intelligencer related that in a performance of Haydn's C major concerto Inch... I heard greater depth in this work than I have in quite some time.Inch He plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler.