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Kobrin Plays Brahms November 5, 2016 Sinfonia D major, H. 663, Wq. 183:1 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Born 1714 in Weimar, Germany Died 1788 in Hamburg, Germany Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed this work in 1775-1776; the circumstances of its first performance are unknown. The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, continued next page bassoon, 2 horns, strings, and continuo. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the second surviving son of J.S. Bach, took a law degree but never practiced; having learned music at his father’s knee he had concurrently become one of the greatest keyboard players in all Europe and a hugely influential composer. He led a dual life musically: he served the court of Frederick the Great for 22 years, then succeeded Telemann (his Godfather) as the Kapellmeister at Hamburg, a position he held until his death. Neither posting encouraged his radical instincts as a composer; that he saved, for the most part, for his keyboard works. These number in the hundreds, and they had an influence that began with his contemporaries, continued through Mozart and Haydn, and reached as far as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber, and even Brahms. The music of his keyboard sonatas made a clean break with the past in its daring emotional range, its harmonic audacity, and its sheer unpredictability. He had a knack for making well-thought-out music sound entirely improvised. He composed far less orchestral music and it is far less well known, but it is no less rewarding. His Sinfonia in D major reveals that his adventuresome spirit was not limited to his keyboard works. The opening of the first movement is altogether strange: Bach takes the opening gesture—insistent, repeated, and accelerating notes in the violins over leaping arpeggios in the lower strings—and repeats it twice, beginning on different pitches. The music finally moves on from the last one and into a stormy allegro. From here Bach changes the moods and textures so suddenly as to induce whiplash. It sounds very much as if the composer had so many musical ideas he couldn’t decide which to use in this movement, so he used them all! The ending has another twist: instead of a true ending the movement comes to a suddenly slower section that serves as an introduction to the Largo that follows. This is a delicate aria in high flutes, decorated by pizzicato violins. Before we feel that it could possibly be over, the bustling third movement leaps in as if someone had left the engine running. Note the little arpeggiated tag-ends played by the violins: their comical veering off of the beat is a pure delight, as is the rest. Program Notes 61


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