The Experts: Music as a Family Affair
On Harmonia Mundi comes a new album from Ensemble Les Surprises highlighting the family connections in Bach’s time around music making, focusing on the impacts of the Bach family and the Silbermann family.
This album’s concept is one that allows the musicians to take a variety of music (here, the music of J.S. Bach and his sons) and frame it around the technological advances in instrument making, focusing on the introduction of the piano. Also we get treated to hearing the famous Silbermann organ at Freiburg’s cathedral, described here in the booklet and elsewhere, as a masterpiece.
Just as Bach was able to wield a great influence upon his progeny with music, so did the Silbermann family on making harpsichords, pianos, and organs. The booklet notes will fill you in on all the details.
I want to start with an arrangement of one of Bach’s trio sonatas for organ, the D minor, BWV 527. I am not sure why they presented it here with strings and continuo, when they had access to an organ, but then again, this is Ensemble Surprises, and not a solo album by their artistic director, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas. Readers may remember that this piece is one of my favorites, me having fallen hard for the original recording on Hyperion, arranged by and recorded by the so-called King’s Consort. I would end up using that CD over and over each and every time I ever audition new hifi equipment. I know it well.
This rendition is not the same, but is equally delicious. Gabriel Grosbard and Marie Rouquié get into it well, and I love the sound of their instruments. It’s too bad we can’t bottle that sound into a sauce. You’d want to squeeze it upon each and every dessert, like a sauce caramel buerre salé.
The sonata in G, BWV 530, however, is recorded, and here presented on the Silbermann instrument in Freiburg. It’s not strange that I might also talk about the tonal nature of this instrument alongside that of the strings. It’s not just the timbre of the pipes, but also the tuning of the instrument that contribute to its flavor. Here the analogy might be one brought about from the smokiness of roasting chestnuts and a confiture of wild berries. In both cases richness abounds. The instrument is a delight, as is Louis-Noël’s command of it.
C.P.E. Bach’s sonata for violin, cello, and keyboard in E minor, H. 531, provides a counterpoint to his father’s trio sonata arrangement. The part for piano is exotically virtuosic compared to the parts for violin and cello. (The violin part is not amateur, for sure, but clearly this piece was wrought to highlight the capabilities of the keyboard.)
W.F. Bach is represented by the inclusion of two lied, a prelude in C, F. 29, and an arrangement from his concerto in D, F.41. Tenor Marc Mauillon contributes to these songs, as the earlier in the program, J.S. Bach’s famous “Bist du bei mir” from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook. His voice is direct, which I like. It fills the room. The concerto arrangement combines harpsichord with piano; as does the third track by his brother, the Duet in E-flat, H. 613.
These instruments lived side by side. While the Silbermann instruments did not last the test of time in terms of their sound and character, it’s refreshingly satisfying to hear them not only on th same album, but playing together. They are different, but they work together.
A fantasie in D minor by W.F. Bach (F. 19) seems a good contrast to the fantasia in C minor, BWV 906, realized on harpsichord. The stylistic differences are profound. It leaves for me so many questions, about how much J.S. Bach knew about his son’s music. Certainly, the D minor fantasie was written far after Wilhelm Friedermann’s father’s death. But even during their lifetime, how much of their compositional art was shared?
The question comes to light as I think about how the Silbermann family likely shared aspects of their instrument building. A different art, for sure.
It’s a fitting end to the album to include the Ricercare à 3 from the Musical Offering, BWV 1079, given that Frederick the Great presented to “Old Bach” the opportunity to create it à la minute at his own Silbermann piano.
The notes include a detail about this visit that I never picked up upon, before, that Bach came not alone, but with his son Wilhelm Friedemanm. I don’t know why that struck me, both his eldest sons in the room, witness to their father’s extraordinary capabilities. It speaks to Frederick’s power, assembling together three musical geniuses. If I ever was to have the ability to go back in time and witness anything, I would want to be in that room in Potsdam.
Mr. Bestion de Camoulas, as you might imagine by now, delivers a finely considered performance, using the full dynamic capacity of the Silbermann fortepiano copy.
My congratulations to the musicians captured in this album. Their concept for me is a powerful one, forming many fascinating thoughts as we consider the life’s work of individual family members and how these family relationships get carried on through time and through innovation and changes in taste.
The performances, aside from the concept, are on high form. While these pieces, especially those by J.S. Bach are available as part of large collections, the Fantasia BWV 906 and the aforementioned trio sonata arranged for ensemble, are of the highest class, as is W.F. Bach’s fantasia on organ. Highly recommended.