Celebrating the Tercentenary of C. P. E. Bach:

Concerts

Thursday, October 2, Anabel Taylor Chapel, 1pm

Free and open to the public.

David Yearsley, organ
David Yearsley was educated at Harvard College and Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in music history. He is author of the widely-praised Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint (Cambridge, 2002) and Bach’s Feet: The Organ Pedals in European Culture (Cambridge, 2012), which received the Ogasapian Book Award from the Organ Historical Society. Among his honors as an organist are all major prizes at the Bruges Early Music Festival. He has been an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin, a Wenner-Gren Foundation Fellow at the University of Gothenburg, and recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. An active journalist, he has been music critic for the Anderson Valley Advertiser for more than two decades. A long-time member of the pioneering synthesizer trio, Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company, he teaches at Cornell University.

Bach & Sons at the Organ

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, Wq. 119/6
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795)
From Concerto Grosso in E-flat Major
Romanza
David Yearsley
Fugue on a Theme by J. C. F. Bach
Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)
Andantino in C
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
From A Musical Offering BWV 1079
Trio Sonata: Allegro
Johann Sebastian Bach / Vivaldi
From Concerto in D Minor, BWV 593
[Allegro] - Grave - Fuga
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Sinfonia in D Minor, Fk. 65
Adagio
Allegro e forte

Thursday, October 2, Carriage House Café, 8pm

Free and open to the public.

Tom Beghin, clavichord
Praised for his eloquence and originality, Tom Beghin has been at the forefront of a new generation of interpreters of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century music. His release on Blu-ray of the complete solo Haydn for keyboard in nine “virtual rooms” was hailed as “one of the most audacious recording enterprises in recent memory” and won a 2011 Juno nomination for “Music DVD of the Year.” With classicist Sander Goldberg he co-edited Haydn and the Performance of Rhetoric, winner of the 2009 Ruth Solie Award from the American Musicological Society. His monograph The Virtual Haydn: Paradox of a Twenty-First-Century Keyboardist is due from The University of Chicago Press, as is a new CD-recording of Schubert’s Winterreise (with the tenor Jan Van Elsacker) from EPR-Classic. After earning his DMA from Cornell University, he has taught at UCLA, and since 2003 has been Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal.

Music by C. P. E. Bach

Rondo in E Minor, "Abschied von meinem Silbermannischen Claviere," Wq 66 (1781)
Poco andante, e sostenuto
Sonata in A Major, Wq 55/4 (1765)
Allegro assai
Poco adagio
Allegro
Pièces de caractère (1754-1756)
L’Aly Rupalich: Allegro assai, Wq 117/27
La Gleim (Rondeau): Allegro grazioso, Wq 117/19
La Stahl: Grave, Wq 117/25
L’Irresoluë, Wq 117/31
La Journalière: Allegro, Wq 117/32
La Xenophon et la Sybille: Allegretto I - Allegretto II, Wq 117/29
La Böhmer (Murky): Prestissimo, Wq 117/26
Sonata VI (from Achtzehn Probe-Stücke in Sechs Sonaten), Wq 63/6 (1753)
Allegro di molto (F Minor)
Adagio affetuoso e sostenuto (A-flat Major)
Fantasia (C Minor)

Friday, October 3, B20 Lincoln Hall, 1pm

Free and open to the public.

Andrew Willis, fortepiano
Andrew Willis performs in the United States and abroad on pianos of every period. His recording of Op.%nbsp;106 for the first complete Beethoven sonata cycle on period instruments was hailed by The New York Times as “a ‘Hammerklavier’ of rare stature.” He has collaborated in recordings with such artists as soprano Julianne Baird and cellist Brent Wissick. A past president of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, he participates regularly in festivals, concert series, and conferences, extending the investigation of historical performance into the Romantic era on an 1848 Pleyel and an 1841 Bösendorfer, and into the Baroque on a replica of a 1735 Florentine piano. Andrew Willis holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music, Temple University, and Cornell University, where his mentors included Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Lambert Orkis, and Malcolm Bilson. He is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he directs the biennial Focus on Piano Literature.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach set out to influence keyboard composers of his day both through his performance treatise of 1753/1762 and through a widely disseminated production of keyboard compositions unprecedented for quantity and originality. This chronological recital interleaves works from four decades of Bach’s career with those of contemporaries displaying a stylistic kinship with his work. After establishing a baseline with a sonata from the test pieces in which Emanuel illustrated the admonitions of his Versuch, we discover in the work of his elder brother Friedemann an equally strong personality exploiting the rhetoric of surprise and sensibility in his unique way. A single Adagio suffices to reveal Müthel, who arrived in the Bach family circle the last year of Sebastian’s life, as a masterful if slightly longwinded practitioner of contrapuntal sensitivity. Another hallmark of Emanuel’s creativity, his penchant for limitless variation upon a harmonized bass, is represented by three short movements with pedagogical intent. Remaining within the traditional Thuringian orbit of the Bach family, we sample the wares of Wolf in Weimar and Hässler in Erfurt, each in his way reflecting a careful synthesis of Bachian expressivity and character with an orderly formal system. There is no competing with the indefatigable Bach, however; in the bracing air of Hamburg his imagination catapults to new heights of contrast, wit, and expressive concentration during the final flowering of his career.

A Keyboard Kinship:
C. P. E. Bach and his Contemporaries

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Achtzehn Probestücke: Sonata IV, Wq 63/4 (Berlin, 1753)
Allegretto grazioso, B Minor
Largo maestoso, D Major
Allegro Siciliano e scherzando, F sharp Minor
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Sonata in E flat Major, F. 5 (Halle, 1748, 1763)
Allegro, ma non troppo
Largo
Presto
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
Sonata in F Major (Nuremberg, 1756)
II. Adagio
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Twelve Polonaises, F. 12 (Halle, c. 1765)
No. 9, F Major
No. 10, F Minor
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Kurze und leichte Stücke mit veränderten Reprisen, Sammlung 1 (Berlin, 1766)
Fantasia, D Minor
Andante e sostenuto, G Minor
Allegro, D Minor
Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-1792)
Sonata in D Minor (Weimar, 1774)
Allegro moderato
Lusingando
Allegro di molto
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Clavier-Sonaten . . . für Kenner und Liebhaber, Sammlung 4 (Hamburg, 1779-1782)
Rondo in B flat Major, Wq 58/5
Johann Wilhelm Häusler (1747-1822)
Sonata in G (Erfurt, 1782)
Allegro di molto
Largo
Presto assai
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Clavier-Sonaten . . . für Kenner und Liebhaber, Sammlung 6 (Hamburg, 1785-1786)
Fantasia in C major, Wq 61/6

Friday, October 3, Barnes Hall, 8pm

Free and open to the public.

Ars Lyrica Houston
Matthew Dirst, dir.
Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano
Sarah Mesko, mezzo-soprano
Dennis James, glass harmonica
Annette Richards, organ

Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst, Ars Lyrica Houston presents a diverse array of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on period instruments. The ensemble’s distinctive programming favors little-known Baroque dramatic and chamber works, and its pioneering efforts have begun to attract international attention: the ensemble’s world première recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra features rising opera stars Jamie Barton and Ava Pine and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera 2011. This CD was hailed recently by Early Music America as “a thrilling performance that glows in its quieter moments and sparkles with vitality.” Ars Lyrica’s most recording—of Domenico Scarlatti’s comic intermezzo La Dirindina and his chamber cantata Pur bel sonno—also features mezzo Jamie Barton (recently crowned Cardiff Singer of the World 2013) and soprano Céline Ricci. Details about forthcoming recordings and upcoming programs can be found at www.arslyricahouston.org.

Atkinson Forum Concert
America in Sentimental Europe

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Organ Concerto in G Major, Wq 34
Allegro di molto
Largo
Presto
Johann Adolf Hasse
L'Armonica
Libretto by Metastasio
Cantata for soprano and glass harmonica
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Die Amerikanerin
Libretto by H. W. von Gerstenberg
Cantata for soprano and orchestra
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Symphony III in F Major, Wq 183/3
Allegro di molto
Larghetto
Presto

Saturday, October 4, B20 Lincoln Hall, 2pm

Free and open to the public.

Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, piano
American pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a diverse career performing music ranging from standard repertoire to electroacoustic improvisation. He has appeared with orchestras including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has worked with such conductors as Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, Joshua Weilerstein and Christoph Eschenbach. Highlights of the 2014-2015 season include George Benjamin's Duet with the Toronto Symphony, conducted by George Benjamin, a solo recital at the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto, and co-directorship of a festival at Cornell University celebrating Olivier Messiaen's ornithological connections to Cornell. Mr. McCullough has worked closely with many of today's leading composers, having had numerous works written for him, and in January of 2013, Ryan was featured on an Innova Records release of composer Andrew McPherson's Secrets of Antikythera for magnetic resonator piano. Ryan is currently Sage Fellow in Critical Keyboard Studies at Cornell University where he works with Xak Bjerken. For more information, visit www.RMMpiano.com.

Atkinson Forum: Touching Instruments

Andrew McPherson
Secrets of Antikythera, for magnetic resonator piano

Secrets of Antikythera takes its inspiration from the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical device for plotting the position of the planets in the night sky. Discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in the early twentieth century, its function was not discovered until decades later. The mechanism is remarkable for its precision and sophistication, the likes of which had never been seen before were not seen again for centuries. In this piece, I imagine the creator of this device, whose identity will likely never be known. What joys and sorrows must this person have encountered while undertaking such a remarkable project? The prologue attempts to capture the sense of wonder at the night sky that might have inspired the creation of this device. Beginning in the second movement, a simple, slowly spinning melodic idea emerges. In each successive movement, this idea is progressively refined until reaching its final form in Movement VIII, "Vision Fulfilled." Finally, the epilogue presents the preceding ideas as they might appear over a vast gap in time: corroded, obscured, with only the bare outlines still distinguishable. The prologue is played entirely with electronically-activated sounds; as the piece goes along, the electronics gradually give way to the piano until Movement VIII is played entirely without electronics. Finally, electronics return in the epilogue, sometimes complementing the traditional piano material, sometimes obscuring it.
Andrew McPherson

Saturday, October 4, Barnes Hall, 4pm

Free and open to the public.

Members of the Cornell Baroque Orchestra
Cornell Chamber Orchestra, dir. Chris Younghoon Kim
Members of the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club, dir. Robert Isaacs
Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano
Sarah Mesko, mezzo-soprano

Music by C. P. E. Bach

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Symphony in B Minor, Wq 182/5
Allegretto
Larghetto
Presto
Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach
Quartet in D Major for Keyboard, Flute, and Viola, Wq 94
Allegretto
Sehr langsam und ausgehalten
Allegro di molto
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Sonata in G Minor for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard, Wq 88
Allegro moderato
Larghetto
Allegro assai
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Trio in E Minor
Allegro spiritoso
Andante
Allegretto
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Quartet in G Major for Keyboard, Flute, and Viola, Wq 95
Allegretto
Adagio
Presto
Klopstocks Morgengesang am Schöpfungsfeste, Wq 239
Accompagnement (Soprano I): Noch kommt sie nicht, die Sonne
Arienmäßig (Soprano II): Heiliger, Hocherhabner
Arie (Soprano I): Schon wehen und saüseln und kühlen
Duett (Soprano I, II): Herr, Herr, Gott, barmherzig und gnädig
Chor: Herr, Herr, Gott, barmherzig und gnädig
Duett (Soprano I, II): Halleluja! Seht ihr die Strahlende
Accompagnement (Soprano I, II): O der Sonne Gottes
Chor: Halleluja! Seht ihr die Strahlende

Saturday, October 4, Anabel Taylor Chapel, 8pm

Free and open to the public.

Peter Sykes, clavichord
Peter Sykes serves as Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, Music Director of First Church in Cambridge, and principal instructor of harpsichord at the Juilliard School in New York City. He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, and has made ten solo recordings of organ repertoire ranging from Buxtehude, Couperin and Bach to Reger and Hindemith and his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s The Planets. Newly released is a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label, and an all-Bach clavichord recording on the Raven label; and soon to be released, the complete Bach obbligato violin sonatas with Daniel Stepner. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal (1978) and Outstanding Alumni Award (2005) from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize (1993) from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation (2011). For more information, visit www.petersykes.com

Recital

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Sonata in G Minor, Wq 65/17
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro assai
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Sonata IV in G Major, Wq 55/6
Allegretto moderato
Andante
Allegro di molto
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Sonata V in F Major, Wq 55/5
Allegro
Adagio maestoso
Allegretto
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Rondo III in A Minor, Wq 56/5
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
From the Bagatelles, op. 33
VI. Allegretto, quasi andante – Con una certa espressione parlante
I. Andante grazioso, quasi Allegretto
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Andante and Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6

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