Bach, J.S.: Favourite Piano Works

Various

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Cat No: 8554041

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943404126

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BACH, J.S.

Description
Johann Sebastian Bach(1685-1750)Famous Piano WorksThe career of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most illustrious of a prolificmusical family, falls neatly into three unequal parts. Born in 1685 inEisenach, from the age of ten Bach lived and studied music with his elderbrother in Ohrdruf, after the death of both his parents. After a series ofappointments as organist and briefly as a court musician, he became, in 1708,court organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar, the elderof the two brothers who jointly ruled the duchy. In 1714 he was promoted to theposition of Konzertmeister to the Duke, but in 1717, after a brief period ofimprisonment for his temerity in seeking to leave the Duke's service, heabandoned Weimar to become Court Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold ofAnhalt-Cothen, a position he held until 1723. From then until his death in 1750he lived in Leipzig, where he was Thomaskantor, with responsibility for themusic of the five principal city churches, in 1729 assuming direction of theuniversity Collegium musicum, founded by Telemann in 1702.At Weimar Bach had been principally employed as an organist, and hiscompositions of the period include a considerable amount written for theinstrument on which he was recognised as a virtuoso performer. At Cothen, wherePietist traditions dominated the court, he had no church duties, and wasresponsible rather for court music. The period saw the composition of a numberof instrumental works. The final 27 years of Bach's life brought a variety ofpreoccupations, and while his official employment necessitated the provision ofchurch music, he was able to provide music for the university Collegium musicumand to write or re-arrange a number of important works for the keyboard.The piano as it exists today was unknown to Bach, who had at hisdisposal, in addition to organs of various degrees of sophistication, theharpsichord, with its plucked strings, and the clavichord, with its relativelygentle hammer-?¡action. The piano, under the name gravicembalo col piano eforte (harpsichord with soft and loud) was invented by BartolommeoCristofori of Padua in 1709. The development was the result of dissatisfactionwith the fixed dynamics of the harpsichord, which played either loud or soft,but was unable to provide shades of dynamic. Bach himself saw two instrumentsby the German maker Silbermann in the 1730s, but objected to the weakness oftouch and sound of the treble register. He took a kinder view of a Silbermanninstrument that he saw in 1747. Nevertheless the developing instrument, whetherpianoforte or fortepiano, lacked the strength and possibilities of the laterpiano, with its iron frame and improved metal strings. Whatever it may lack inhistorical accuracy, the modem piano must be recognised as a viable instrumentfor the performance of earlier music, although searches for some degree ofauthenticity have led even pianists to adopt techniques of playing that reflectin some measure the earlier techniques of per
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