Description
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was music director of five of Hamburg's principal churches from 1768 until his death in 1788. It was a strenuous and risky position of great responsibility. He was to make church services as attractive as possible with performances of his own original compositions alongside those of his contemporaries, so the faithful would show up in droves to church. On the other hand, he was to avoid theologically questionable theatrics. The two fascinating main works on these new recordings with Michael Alexander Willens and the Kolner Akademie clearly show that the "Hamburg Bach" knew very well how to fill up church pews. He returned to his Magnificat thirty years after its composition in Berlin in 1749. Bach had it performed twice at his new place of work (1779 and 1786) adding three trumpets, two horns and timpani to yield a certain festive brilliance. His 1775 Christmas cantata Auf, schicke dich, recht feierlich, features similar magnificence. Bach was apparently very pleased with this unusually formatted work, for he programmed it several times. A brilliantly sparkling piece of "ephemera" concludes the programme. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach had only twelve hours on a certain day in 1770 to compose the festive Spiega, Ammonia, fortunata ("Hail, blessed Hamburg") on the occasion of the visit of the Swedish crown prince and later Gustav III of Vasa ... it would be hard to be believe if Bach himself had not noted it in his autobiography.
