Harmonia Mundi's C.P.E. Bach: 4 Orchestra-Symphonies -- Cello Concerto in A Major features august British period ensemble the
English Concert under the direction of its maestro di capella
Andrew Manze in the four "Orchestra-Symphonies" from
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach that Wotquenne catalogs as "Wq. 183." To add variance and excitement to this program, the
English Concert's regular first cellist,
Alison McGillivray, steps forward to take the solo spot in
C.P.E.'s Cello Concerto in A major, Wq. 172, a work that predates the others by more than two decades. For
Bach "son number two" writing symphonies was certainly a case of an old dog learning a new trick; his youngest brother
Johann Christian Bach had already been composing them for a decade.
C.P.E. Bach's symphonies are willfully eccentric, laden with bizarre effects and almost jazzy in their rhythmic intensity. For symphonies that just a generation ago belonged to the vast corpus of eighteenth century orchestral music that no one seemed to know or care about, they are swiftly gaining ground in terms of performances and recordings.