Comparison
recordings of keyboard music by C.P.E. Bach:
Miklos
Spanyi, tangent piano, etc., BIS 878, 879, 882, 963, 964,
978, 1086, 1087, 1088, 1189, 1195, 1198, 1328, 1329. [early
volumes available from Musical Heritage Society, North America
only]
Christopher
Hogwood, fortepiano. Oiseau-Lyre LP set
Sonatas,
Marches, Rondos, Gustav Leonhardt, hps. [ADD] PRO CD 2016
“Folies
d’Espagne,” Rafael Puyana, hps. Mercury Living Presence [ADD]
CD 289 462 959-2
C.P.E. Bach had an irritating
habit to modern ears of starting some interesting textural
and harmonic exploration, then choking it off with a conventional
cadence. It’s as though some great classic nude painting has
a large fig-leaf painted onto it, or a literary classic in
which all the colorful language has been replaced with obscure
Victorian euphemisms. C.P.E. Bach had seen firsthand what
genius had done to his father and his family life. C.P.E.
was a genius, but not a daring exploratory genius who defied
convention and sought the truth at all costs. He was a comfortable
bourgeois composer who had occasional musings of far off exotic
lands but was careful never to be late for supper. Frederick
the Great understood this and kept his salary in line with
expectations. Frederick got used to this and you can, too;
then you can join C.P.E. on his explorations and enjoy his
limited view of these potential discoveries, for wonderful
discoveries they are.
And there are rare and
exciting moments when he completely fulfills the reach of
his dreams*. The performer has to be alert to the potential
of this music and be sure all that is here comes through,
to minimize the sense of reserve and caution, but not to attempt
to magnify the music into Beethovenian realms, nor present
it as an unsuccessful attempt to write Mozart. Christopher
Hinterhuber is such a performer and the result is first
rate, highly enjoyable and a credit to the composer.
Of course the real news
in the C.P.E. universe is the complete series of keyboard
music on BIS with Miklos Spanyi on various period instruments.
The keyboard concertos are now complete and the solo keyboard
music is out, up to volume 14. Some of us are crazy enough
to want all thirty or so volumes to date and the rewards of
this are enormous, as is the cost. But for the rest of us,
this disk by Hinterhuber is a more reasonable plateful.
The venerable Hogwood and
Leonhardt recordings used to be the best we had and are still
of value. The one very interesting piece by C.P.E. recorded
by Rafael Puyana is not the reason you’ll buy this disk, but
it is a disk you want.
Paul Shoemaker
see also
Reviews
by Kevin Sutton and Glyn
Pursglove
* For example, the magnificent
Harpsichord Concerto in d minor, H.490. It has been
well recorded several times and if you don’t know it, you
owe it to yourself to look it up. And be alert to new releases
of his vocal music which is yet to be fully discovered.
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Christopher Hinterhuber (piano)
