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Reviewer: Richard Wigmore
The oboe concertos – CPE Bach at his most amenable – get prime billing on the
jewel case. Yet it’s the two capriciously inventive symphonies from the
mid-1750s that really grip the imagination here. These are far less familiar
than CPE’s later sets of Hamburg symphonies, but hardly less subversive in their
violently compacted opening movements. Mingling athletic precision and
devil-may-care abandon, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin relish the music’s
seething energy and harmonic and dynamic shocks. Violins surge and spit
frenetically against the glinting highpitched horns. With discreetly balanced
harpsichord support, CPE’s characteristic repeated-note bass lines are lithe and
propulsive, always enhancing the music’s nervous vitality. The players are
equally attuned to the soulful Empfindsamkeit of the slow movements,
whether in the gently lilting Andante of the F major Symphony (Wq181) or the
more disturbed Largo of the G major (Wq180). With her mellow, rounded tone and
subtle rhythmic sense, Xenia Löffler excels in the more gracious, ‘normal’ world
of the oboe concertos, though as ever CPE cannot resist the odd disorientating
hiatus or alien harmony. Löffler is all you could ask in this repertoire,
phrasing and colouring with spontaneous flair, bringing a twinkling sense of fun
(not a word readily associated with CPE) to the finales and a singing eloquence
to the slow movements. The plaintive Largo e mesto of the B flat Concerto
(Wq164) has a touching, fragile intimacy I’ve never heard equalled, with the
strings matching Löffler all the way in sensitivity. I would have ideally liked
the oboe less forwardly balanced vis-à-vis the orchestra. But that’s a trifling
reservation. The CD competition, especially in the symphonies, is sparse. Even
if it weren’t, I’d confidently recommend this disc to anyone attracted to CPE’s
quirkily fascinating art. |
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