0 Bach & Sons: 5 Piano Concertos

"These are spirited performances. Katsaris’ crystal-clear touch […]. Quite a successful party, this CD. Pianowereld." --The Netherlands

"[...] Katsaris’s reading of Johann Christoph Friedrich’s often-edgy E-Major Concerto came as something of a revelation." --Fanfare (USA)

A tireless seeker of unfairly neglected works, Katsaris here offers an original programme on disc. This brings together for the first time five of the most beautiful concertos of the Bach family: Johann Sebastian, the famous father, and his sons: Wilhelm Friedemann, Johann Christian, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Carl Philipp Emanuel. Cyprien is here accompanied by the Echternach Festival Chamber Orchestra under the baton of the Korean Conductor Yoon K. Lee.

The pianist’s personal, disciplined approach carries the hallmark of a meticulous, inquisitive musical interpreter whose familiarity with this repertoire renders any philological squabbling irrelevant. He allows his inspiration free rein in these works, whence emerges their entire evolution, from Johann Sebastian’s rigorous polyphony to Wilhelm Friedemann’s pre-romantic development to Carl Philipp Emanuel’s robust theatricality.

Detail: Bach & Sons: 5 Piano Concertos

0 Wilhelm F. Bach: Symphonies & Concerto pour clavecin

This recording presents a selection of works that will at last allow justice to be done to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Sebastian's favourite son.

The legacy of his enigmatic life is a body of works whose highly personal style largely awaits rediscovery.

The eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann was born in 1710 in Weimar and was taught by his father, after 1723, when the family moved to Leipzig, becoming a pupil at the Thomasschule. He spent four years at the University of Leipzig, before finding employment as organist at the Sophienkirche in Dresden and subsequently, with unhappy results, at the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle. 

From 1764 until his death twenty years later he held no official position, although he had been widely recognised as one of the most distinguished organists of his time and had mastered very thoroughly the lessons taught him by his father. His own tendency to the freedom of thought of the Enlightenment had not endeared him to his Pietist superiors in Halle and independence of character rendered him gradually less employable, within the restrictive circumstances of his time.

Detail: Wilhelm F. Bach: Symphonies & Concerto pour clavecin