Bach Sons - Symphonies by J. C. Bach, J. C. F. Bach, W. F. Bach & C. P. E. Bach

Album review

“A musical dream” – that’s how the Orchestra Controcorrente views its work, expanding on the questions that were posed (and not answered) by Federico Fellini in his film Prova d’orchestra, in 1978. Made up of young musicians from over six different countries in Europe and beyond, this new ensemble of period instruments based in Italy is entirely self-managing and plays without a conductor. The first release of this utopian project is highly successful and is dedicated to the Bach sons, whose diversity never ceases to amaze. The liveliness of their performance, their enthusiastic commitment to this project and the variety of their articulations are fantastic.

In the past, musicologists would divide the history of music into neat little periods forming one homogenous whole. But this method of labelling the making of music is now heavily critiqued. The musical world does not simply leave the baroque era and arrive in the classical era overnight, and then the romantic era the day after that. You have to take into account the rather uncertain notion of “the spirit of the times” and the traditions of a certain place or patron.

The coming together of four of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most talented sons for this album, all of them born within a fairly short time period, is a wonderful representation of the fragmentation of various musical trends. One of them is still writing Baroque, another has a rather “Galant” style, and then there is the unpredictable and extravagant boldness of Carl Philipp Emanuel. He was one of the first composers to place the expression of emotion above everything else and viewed it as the foundation for both the composition itself and its performance.

As the first advocate of the “Empfidsamer Stil” (the sensitive style) that later prevailed among Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and the Romantics, the music of C. P. E. Bach had a huge influence on later Western music. At the turn of the last century, he was finally rediscovered and has gradually been reinstated among the great composers, a place he should never have left. © François Hudry/Qobuz