Carl Philipp Emmanuel BACH (1714-1788)
Cello Concerto Wq.170 in A minor (1750) [23:00]
Cello Concerto Wq.171 in B flat major (1751) [20:26]
Cello Concerto Wq.172 in A major (1753) [17:17]
Julian Steckel (cello)
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester/Susanne von Gutzeit
rec. 19-21 May 2015 Göppingen Stadthalle, Göppingen, Germany
HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC15045 [60:46]
Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach wrote his three cello concerti
in the early 1750s. Here are spirited and highly enjoyable versions
of these popular works, played by Julian Steckel and the Stuttgart Chamber
Orchestra, led by Susanne von Gutzeit.
The performances, on modern instruments, remind listeners how the much
difference between historically informed and conventional performance
practice has narrowed. The old Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra of Karl Munchinger’s
era produced a very warm and sometimes cloying sound. Today the orchestra
has a much leaner, but not acidic sound, and its interpretations have
been influenced by intervening years of discoveries about Eighteenth
Century performance conventions.
Julian Steckel is a young German cellist who has also recorded Korngold
and Bloch, suggesting a wide range of musical interest. He is technically
assured, but just as important, really seems to enjoy the onrush of
notes that Bach provides. Conductor Susanne von Gutzeit is in accord,
which results in performances that are on the happy side of nervous
energy. That is to say, this recording does not make C.P.E. Bach sound
quite as neurotic as some. Nonetheless, even after decades of listening
to these pieces, it is still wonderfully strange music, surprising listeners
by lurching headlong into unexpected regions. Many interpreters treat
C.P.E. Bach as a proto-romantic, or even as a voice speaking to our
own anxious time. Steckel and von Gutzeit seem to anchor him more firmly
in his own era, with no musical loss.
I call attention to Steckel’s gentle playing at the opening of
the B flat concerto (Wq. 171), the excitement he brings to the end of
the A minor concerto (Wq. 170), and the forward motion that all of these
musicians bring to the slow movements, which some players make static
and dull.
These are lively performances of three outstanding pre-classical cello
concerti, full of drama, but more genial than disturbed.
Richard Kraus
Previous review: Michael
Cookson
