C P E Bach's Empfindsamkeit style music

[howie...@btinternet.com]

I'm trying to explore C P E Bach's Empfindsamkeit style music, but I'm finding it real hard to find good recordings. I have Van Asperen's CDs of Prussian and Wuttenburg sonatas, where you catch occasional glimpses of this style, in Wuttenburg 6 for example, but I think I need to go to later music to find him at his most astonishing. The sonatas with varied repeats maybe. Anyway, if you've found good performances on record , please let me know, because I like the music a lot -- also non keyboard stuff in Empfindsamkeit style.

Here's a lovely recording by Lena Jaconson -- this is the sort of thing I like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrGFTDv0FHo&list=UUcgeR8s_FhF5kTZhca_Eq_g

Lena Jaconson has a lot of very fine stuff on youtube -- not just Buxtehude and Scarlatti but also Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven.

[Ricky Jimenez]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 13:41:55 -0800 (PST), howie...@btinternet.com
wrote:

Have you listened to Pletnev's CD of CPE Bach Sonatas and Rondos on a
modern Steinway? Certainly this music is an acquired taste which, so
far, I don't have.

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Yes, and I saw Pletnev play the music. Unfortunately he doesn't play too much of the more bold music, the Empfindsamkeit style music.

I got interested in CPE Bach through listening and thinking about Haydn. I like the unpredictability of CPE's best music.

[Herman]

Op dinsdag 5 maart 2013 07:29:52 UTC+1 schreef howie...@btinternet.com het volgende:

> Yes, and I saw Pletnev play the music. Unfortunately he doesn't play too much of the more bold music, the Empfindsamkeit style music.
>
>
>
> I got interested in CPE Bach through listening and thinking about Haydn. I like the unpredictability of CPE's best music.

Happened to me too, a long time ago.

[Gerard]

howie...@btinternet.com <howie...@btinternet.com> typed:

Maybe you like the symphonies better.
Or don't they represent Empfindsamkeit style?

[Herman]

Op dinsdag 5 maart 2013 10:11:36 UTC+1 schreef Gerard het volgende:

No, as I recall it's mostly the private keyboard works that have this delicious capriciousness.

[MiNe 109]

In article <e55d165b-c835-4b85...@googlegroups.com>,

The OP should be aware of the various keyboard fantasies. I have a
collection on fortepiano by Evelyn Garvey but haven't listened to it in
ages.

Stephen

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Yes, well I was aware that he wrote some Empfindsamkeit fantasies -- the youtube I posted from Lena Jacobson is such a fantasie in fact. If you do get the chance to listen to the CD you have by Evelyn Garvey, I'd love to know what you think.

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Does anyone have any views about Miklos Spanyi's CDs? I played Vol 22 today, which had quite a bit of really nice Empfindsamkeit style music. But my impression was that the performance was totally workmanlike.

[howie...@btinternet.com]

I've listened to some of the symphonies played by Ludger Remy -- and the style there was certainly not Empfindsamkeit -- nevertheless the music was diverting and entertaining.

[Gerard]

Herman <her...@yahoo.com> typed:

Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something else.

[Herman]

Le mardi 5 mars 2013 17:50:58 UTC+1, Gerard a écrit :

>
> Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
>
> I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something else.

I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many Empfindsamkeit works.

It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".

[Gerard]

Herman <her...@yahoo.com> typed:
> Le mardi 5 mars 2013 17:50:58 UTC+1, Gerard a �crit :

>
> >
> > Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
> >
> > I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something
> > else.
>
> I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many
> Empfindsamkeit works.
>
> It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".

If so, then why are the symphonies not full of "delicious capriciousness" or
"unpredictability"?

[howie...@btinternet.com]

I suspect you're right to be a bit suspicious of what Herman and I were suggesting. I just listened to the Symmphonia wq 182 as played by Norrington here

http://www.kanzaki.com/norrington/discography/PH08018

and there are elements of delicious capriciousness (wonderful turn of phrase.) The recording is on spotify.

You can, I think, hear a connection to Haydn's orchestral music. Thanks for prompting me to dig slightly deeper.

[Gerard]

howie...@btinternet.com <howie...@btinternet.com> typed:

I don't know Norrington's recording.
I'm more familiar with recordings by Pinnock (Wq 182), Hogwood (Wq 182),
Leonhardt (Wq 183), Haenchen, Koopman, Hengelbrock. All recommendable ... and
full of delicious capriciousness ;-)

[Herman]

Op dinsdag 5 maart 2013 18:33:19 UTC+1 schreef Gerard het volgende:
> Herman typed:

Because it's not public. That keyboard music is meant for one performer and a small circle of friends.

That's one of the big distinctions in pre-Mozart music.

[csembalo]

>
> > > > I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many
>
> > > > Empfindsamkeit works.
>
> > > > It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".
>

If you're looking for unpredictability, try the six "Hamburg" keyboard concertos, Wq. 43. There's a recent complete recording by Andreas Staier:

http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=1151514

Also, as already mentioned, be sure to try the four sinfonias, Wq. 183.

[laraine]

I rather liked the way that worked for the
Beethoven funeral march in Op. 26, 3rd mov't-
was still somber, but not too abstract, but
I felt the way she used that style for the
rest of the sonata was too exaggerated for
me. I mean, the mood in those other mov'ts
is already exaggerated --why play it up more...

Thought it worked better on the C.P.E. Bach,
and some of the F.Couperin.

You might even check out H.J.Lim - isn't
that some of what she's doing with
Beethoven sonatas...

Seems like a good way to figure out how to
interpret a piece --try different moods
and surprises, and something might work.

Even Lang Lang's exaggeration might fit
into this.

C.

[Oscar]

On Mar 4, 1:41 pm, howie.st...@btinternet.com wrote:
>
> I'm trying to explore C P E Bach's Empfindsamkeit style music, but I'm finding it real hard to find good recordings.

— Bach (Carl Philipp Emanuel): Die Israeliten in der Wüste, Wq 238
(1768/69) - Barbara Schick (S), Lena Lootens (S), Hein Meens (T),
Stephen Varcoe (B); Corona Coloniensis, Cappella Coloniensis / William
Christie [Harmonia Mundi HMA 1901031 ℗ 1990, 1993, Musique d'abord
reissue, Production: WDR (West German Broadcasting), Recorded at
Kulturzentrum, Lindlar, December 1988, Executive producer: Klaus L.
Neumann, Sound engineering: Otto Nielen and Dietrich Wohlfromm —
perhaps the choral apotheosis of empfindsamer Stil]

[Lionel Tacchini]

laraine wrote :

> On Mar 4, 3:41ï¿œpm, howie.st...@btinternet.com wrote:
>> I'm trying to explore C P E Bach's Empfindsamkeit style music, but I'm
>> finding it real hard to find good recordings. I have Van Asperen's CDs of
>> Prussian and Wuttenburg sonatas, where you catch occasional glimpses of this
>> style, in Wuttenburg 6 for example, but I think I need to go to later music
>> to find him at his most astonishing. The sonatas with varied repeats maybe.
>> Anyway, if you've found good performances on record , please let me know,
>> because I like the music a lot -- also non keyboard stuff in Empfindsamkeit
>> style.
>>
>> Here's a lovely recording by Lena Jaconson -- this is the sort of thing I
>> like.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrGFTDv0FHo&list=UUcgeR8s_FhF5kTZhca_Eq_g
>>
>> Lena Jaconson has a lot of very fine stuff on youtube -- not just Buxtehude
>> and Scarlatti but also Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven.
>
> I rather liked the way that worked for the
> Beethoven funeral march in Op. 26, 3rd mov't-
> was still somber, but not too abstract, but
> I felt the way she used that style for the
> rest of the sonata was too exaggerated for
> me. I mean, the mood in those other mov'ts
> is already exaggerated --why play it up more...

The Beethoven sonata sounds completely unusual, so far away from
anything heard elsewhere that one wonders what principle is being
applied to come to such a result.

>
> Thought it worked better on the C.P.E. Bach,
> and some of the F.Couperin.
>
> You might even check out H.J.Lim - isn't
> that some of what she's doing with
> Beethoven sonatas...

HJ Lim sounds traditional in comparison.

Lionel Tacchini

[Andrej Kluge]

Hi,

Herman wrote:
> Le mardi 5 mars 2013 17:50:58 UTC+1, Gerard a �crit :

>
>>
>> Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
>>
>> I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something
>> else.
>
> I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many
> Empfindsamkeit works.
>
> It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".

While "Empfindsamkeit" can be generally translated into English as
emotionalism, sensibility, sensitiveness, sensitivity or touchiness, I think
in this context it may be appropriate to translate it as in the literary era
"Age of Sentiment".

Ciao
AK

[Gerard]

Andrej Kluge <kl...@wizzy.de> typed:
> Hi,
>
> Herman wrote:
> > Le mardi 5 mars 2013 17:50:58 UTC+1, Gerard a �crit :

> >
> > >
> > > Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
> > >
> > > I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something
> > > else.
> >
> > I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many
> > Empfindsamkeit works.
> >
> > It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".
>
> While "Empfindsamkeit" can be generally translated into English as
> emotionalism, sensibility, sensitiveness, sensitivity or touchiness,
> I think in this context it may be appropriate to translate it as in
> the literary era "Age of Sentiment".
>
> Ciao
> AK

Isn't that closer to Schubert than to C.P.E. Bach and "delicious
capriciousness"?

[howie...@btinternet.com]

I've just played the Beethoven for the first time.

Jacobson was a specialiast in baroque and earlier, so I was quite surprised to see her play Beethoven and Brahms apnd Chopin in public. I like her Scarlatti on youtube more and more each time I play it. She has a CD of Buxtehude organ music which is very distinctive, I quite enjoy it as long as I don't try to compare it with more standard ways of playing the same music. Really though I think she often destroys the form of the chorales she plays, the fugal passages sound as free and improvisatory as the toccatas, there's so much expressiveness, and sometimes it's hard to hear ideas returning. The performances flow, but some of the structural coherence is hidden.

She's published a paper on Buxtehude, "Musical Rhetoric in Buxtehude's Free Organ Works," The Organ Yearbook 13 (1982): 60-79. If anyone can find a copy for me I would be very happy, I'm not a member of an academic library any more.

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Maybe this is true, that although some of the symphonies are rhythmically surprising, and sometimes change dynamics and mood quite unexpectedly, I don't think I've heard any orchestral music quite as harmonically astonishing as, for example, the 6th Wuttenberg sonata, at least as Bob van Asperen plays it.

Maybe those Wuttenburg sonatas are a sort of high point of some sort of style.

[Herman]

Le mercredi 6 mars 2013 20:13:58 UTC+1, howie...@btinternet.com a écrit :
> Maybe this is true, that although some of the symphonies are rhythmically surprising, and sometimes change dynamics and mood quite unexpectedly, I don't think I've heard any orchestral music quite as harmonically astonishing as, for example, the 6th Wuttenberg sonata, at least as Bob van Asperen plays it.
>
>
>
> Maybe those Wuttenburg sonatas are a sort of high point of some sort of style.

As I recall I used to have those on LPs back then...

[Andrej Kluge]

Hi,

Gerard wrote:
>>>> Could you please tell what is considered to be Empfindsamkeit?
>>>>
>>>> I thought that "delicious capriciousness" is completely something
>>>> else.
>>>
>>> I think "that delicious capriciousness" is a part of many
>>> Empfindsamkeit works.
>>>
>>> It's what Howie calls "unpredictability".
>>
>> While "Empfindsamkeit" can be generally translated into English as
>> emotionalism, sensibility, sensitiveness, sensitivity or touchiness,
>> I think in this context it may be appropriate to translate it as in
>> the literary era "Age of Sentiment".
>

> Isn't that closer to Schubert than to C.P.E. Bach and "delicious
> capriciousness"?

Yes, probably. Who brought up this term anyway? ("delicious capriciousness")

Ciao
AK

[howie...@btinternet.com]

On Tuesday, 5 March 2013 14:57:44 UTC, MiNe 109 wrote:

You could be right about the Fantasias. Just listen to this stunning performance of one of them from Robert Hill on a rather nice clavichord.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53TvVY4_BY

[MiNe 109]

In article <03abfa56-cff5-4fc2...@googlegroups.com>,

howie...@btinternet.com wrote:

> > The OP should be aware of the various keyboard fantasies. I have a
> >
> > collection on fortepiano by Evelyn Garvey but haven't listened to it in
> >
> > ages.
> >
> >
> >
> > Stephen
>
> You could be right about the Fantasias. Just listen to this stunning
> performance of one of them from Robert Hill on a rather nice clavichord.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53TvVY4_BY

Yep, that's the kind of thing! Another unheard recent purchase of mine
is the Staier concertos.

Stephen

[howie...@btinternet.com]

And I've just ordered this

http://tinyurl.com/cyz7ejw

The review of the same CD on amazon.co.uk is so positive I couldn't resist, and whenever I've heard any of these Kenner und Liebhaber pieces on youtube they sound really nice.

[MiNe 109]

In article <e22a8383-c39d-451c...@googlegroups.com>,

I like the C Major and A Major from the first set and there's a lot more
to enjoy.

Stephen

[laraine]

On Mar 6, 1:01 pm, howie.st...@btinternet.com wrote:
> I've just played the Beethoven for the first time.
>
> Jacobson  was a specialiast in baroque and earlier, so I was quite surprised to see her play Beethoven and Brahms apnd Chopin  in public. I like her Scarlatti on youtube more and more  each time I play it. She has a CD of Buxtehude organ music which is very distinctive, I quite enjoy it as long as I don't try to compare it with more standard ways of playing the same music. Really though I think she often destroys the form of the chorales she plays, the fugal passages  sound as free and improvisatory as the toccatas, there's so much expressiveness, and sometimes it's hard to hear ideas returning. The performances flow, but some of the structural coherence is hidden.

I listened to a couple more. Not sure the
Scarlatti worked for me.

I think for this style, the organ music sounds
best IMO- the organ being so serious and
somber and all, a little lightheartedness
sounds good.

C.

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Why do hou hear her as lighthearted? Someone else said they thought her Scarlatti was "cartoonish in her unsettling and uneven tempos", but I don't hear it like that.

The jolting style makes me think of Harnoncourt in Handel op 6.

[max197...@hotmail.com]

On Monday, March 4, 2013 4:41:55 PM UTC-5, howie...@btinternet.com wrote:
> I'm trying to explore C P E Bach's Empfindsamkeit style music, but I'm finding it real hard to find good recordings. I have Van Asperen's CDs of Prussian and Wuttenburg sonatas, where you catch occasional glimpses of this style, in Wuttenburg 6 for example, but I think I need to go to later music to find him at his most astonishing. The sonatas with varied repeats maybe. Anyway, if you've found good performances on record , please let me know, because I like the music a lot -- also non keyboard stuff in Empfindsamkeit style.
>
>
>
> Here's a lovely recording by Lena Jaconson -- this is the sort of thing I like.
>
>
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrGFTDv0FHo&list=UUcgeR8s_FhF5kTZhca_Eq_g
>
>
>
> Lena Jaconson has a lot of very fine stuff on youtube -- not just Buxtehude and Scarlatti but also Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven.

She's playing on a synthesizer.
-Max

[laraine]

On Mar 8, 12:56 am, howie.st...@btinternet.com wrote:
> Why do hou hear her as lighthearted? Someone else said they thought her Scarlatti was "cartoonish in her unsettling and uneven tempos", but I don't hear it like that.
>
> The jolting style makes me think of Harnoncourt in Handel op 6.

For some reason, I'm having trouble with
YouTube right now, but the organ pieces
I listened to were mostly by Buxtehude,
and were in major. If they had been in
minor, I suppose you could add the
"stormlike" qualities mentioned with
regard to the CPE Bach.

Anyway, of all her pieces I heard, I
liked the ones on organ best.

As far as the Scarlatti, it did sound
a little too exaggerated to me. She
picked a few of the pieces where
Scarlatti uses dissonances with clusters.
What she did there might actually be a
good way to emphasize the sudden
unusual harmony, yet I'm not sure
I liked the exaggerated style throughout.

It seems to me that D.Scarlatti wrote
his pieces to take advantage of the
plucked qualities and resonance of
the harpsichord, and he was quite
good at that. If played straight,they
also often have a good strong beat and
Baroque momentum. Yet when changing
the rhythm so excessively, one must
be careful not to lose those kinds of
qualities.

That being said, she is of course free
to play however she likes, and she
certainly has planned it all thoroughly.
And... I have heard Handel on keyboard
played that way too, which startles me
even more, because Handel seems even less
"clownish" than Scarlatti.

If I wished to play in that style,
however, I think I'd try it out on
the piano rather than harpsichord,
because Scarlatti (and Handel and
even F.Couperin) often do not sound
good on a piano. (Granted, some
rubato is expected on a harpsichord.)

C.