CPE Bach: Universe of Harmony

Keyboardist Chad Kelly from the UK is rapidly gaining respect as a formidable continuo player and director, having worked closely with the likes of Rachel Podger, Trevor Pinnock and John Eliot Gardiner. We welcome him as Guest Director for this program of rich and strange music from the cusp of the Classical era.

Universal Harmony, the Music of the Spheres. Pythagoras thought you just had to listen hard enough. Kepler, like Shakespeare, though it could only be perceived by the immortal soul.

The concept survived the Age of Reason, fascinating the English mathematician Robert Smith and in turn prompting a career rethink for composer William Herschel: In 1781, twenty years after writing the Sinfonia which opens this intriguing program, he found himself staring at a new planet through the lens of his beautiful DIY telescope. Discovering Uranus, four moons and infrared radiation has relegated Herschel’s musical achievements to a footnote on his CV, but as a young man he was a sought-after talent.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the genius of Bach’s second son Emmanuel was exploding like a supernova, sweeping aside Baroque intricacy and ushering in a new age of streamlined music. The Enlightenment hero’s imagination, though, as you’ll hear, sometimes seems to summon those monsters born of the sleep of reason. The slow movement of his Cello Concerto in A, draws you down into inky depths before shocking you with a delicious gust of fresh air in the finale (which will greet ABC Classic FM listeners like an old friend). Such kaleidoscopic shifts of emotion, also evident in his Sinfonias, are more what you’d expect from Berlioz.

Telemann, a good friend of his dad’s, was still going strong when his godson was dabbling in such dark arts. The old guard figurehead could also be surprisingly ‘Avant’. His outlandish orchestral suite La Bizarre (one of the estimated 600 he composed) can be enjoyed as a lively toe tapping affair, but it also brims with composer in-jokes and is at times laugh-out-loud funny.