Johann Sebastian Bach - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Father and Son

Einav Yarden

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917295221

Catalog number: CC 72952
Releasedate: 12-05-23

- Fourth release by Einav Yarden on Challenge Classics: Johann Sebastian Bach and Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach
- The spotlight is on the son. By combining father and son, the disc intends to emphasize the bold innovations of the latter.
- Washington Post on CC 72599: She pairs Beethoven to Stravinsky to striking effect, merging that unlikely couple with imagination and exceptionally vivid playing. Gramophone on CC 72742 (Haydn): What an enterprising programme from the Israeli pianist Einav Yarden…Yarden clearly has much to say in this repertoire and she’s beautifully recorded too.
Piano News on 72776 (Schumann): Einav Yarden is a captivating pianist with a clear vision and a wonderful, convincing sound.

Einav Yarden: When I first discovered C.P.E Bach’s keyboard music, I remember being completely amazed by its versatility and originality, by its inventiveness, spectrum of expression and its boldness. I was equally astounded by how much he preceded his time, that only one generation away from his father’s High Baroque, and long before the Viennese Classical School fully flourished, he experimented so widely, pushed boundaries tirelessly, and in many ways laid the foundation for what was to become the Classical style. That he influenced Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is clear and known, but one could also argue that he foreshadowed in certain ways the Romantic period.

With this album I wish to shed light on this brilliant composer’s music, but wanted to do so while placing him next to the composer he most admired, but from whom he also needed to diverge and completely redefine himself – his father, Johann Sebastian Bach. The differences are extreme in every parameter, but some interesting parallels also emerge, as in the relationship to the written improvisation, the fantasia and the rondo.

The majority of the C.P.E. Bach pieces on this album were written in the later part of his career, but two of them were written in the 1740’s, in other words while his father was still alive and writing. Each in its way, they offer a window into this interesting transition period in musical style and in C.P.E.’s composition. The works from his later period further unfold his endless originality and ceaseless urge to experiment. The incredible masterpieces of J.S. Bach are milestones of beauty and perfection - and when heard next to the son’s pieces, they further highlight just how far, and in how many directions, the son went.

This recording was made using a Chris Maene Concert Grand built in 2017. This remarkable instrument combines the knowledge and materials used in modern piano building with those found in older historical instruments. The most striking feature is that unlike in modern grand pianos, in which the strings in the bass and middle registers cross, in this instrument all strings run parallel to each other. As a result, it combines the solidity of a modern concert grand piano with the transparent sound ideal of older instruments