Tonight we were at the Melbourne Recital Centre for a concert called The Bachs. Shunske Sato (from the Netherlands) was directing the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (as a guest director), and he was also playing baroque violin. Emma Black from Austria was playing baroque oboe. It was... intricate and amazing, with sweetness plunging into complexity into bravura into alarums into graceful dance movements into an upsurge of jagged musical cliffs into a great culmination of the sharp edges of contrapuntal figures finally coming to sonorous rest.
So... I thought I'd post links of the pieces which were performed.
Heinrich Bach: Sonata "a cinque" in F major. This performance is by Musica Antiqua Köln. (Heinrich Bach was the great-uncle of the J. S. Bach we all know and love.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txzsYG1rsq0
Johann Ludwig Bach: Excerpts from Suite in G major. Played by Musica Antiqua Köln. (DIfferent branch of the Bach family; he's connected to JS Bach by their both having the same great-great grandfather, Veit Bach.)
i Ouverture
ii Air I
vi Bourée
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOLbLjxOu7tanwd-sWl3owtj_FRuL42ME
(In spite of my admiration for Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini, he directs JL Bach's Suite with an Italian style instead of the German style, so I'm not linking to that performance.)
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Symphony in E-flat major, Wq 179. Live performance by Orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music. (CPE Bach is one of JS Bach's sons, and was incredibly famous in his lifetime.)
i Prestissimo
ii Larghetto
iii Presto
https://youtu.be/aYSPlTTM9Gc
Johann Sebastian Bach ("the" Bach): Concerto in C minor for oboe and violin, BWV 1060R. Live performance by the Netherlands Bach Society with Emma Black and Shunske Sato themselves! This is as close as you can get to hearing what we heard at the recital centre.
i Allegro
ii Adadio
iii Allegro
https://youtu.be/ZIaiB9X2LGs
Cyriacus Wilche: Battaglia (anno 1659 composita). Live performance by The Nordic Baroque Band. (This composer is connected to J.S. Bach via his second wife Anna Magdalena. Her family name was Wilchke before she married Bach, and there's evidence that Cyriacus Wilche was an ancestor, perhaps her great-grandfather. This piece is the only extant work of his.
https://youtu.be/i-d3g3MZXuY
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach: Excerpt from Fantasia in A minor for solo harpsichord, F 23. Live performance by Lorenzo Antinori (from Il Giardino Barocco). WF Bach was Bach's first (and favourite) son; incredibly gifted, although apparently a difficult personality.
https://youtu.be/Ttv1sCAd5Xw
W.F. Bach: Symphony in A major (fragment).
i Allegro
ii Siciliano
iii Presto
ALERT! TEARS! I cannot find a recording of this. It's not in any of my WF Bach recordings. It's not on YouTube. I'm going to try to track it down somehow... but in the meantime, the best I can do is link to another of WF Bach's symphonies instead. (It's particularly annoying as I was completely enthralled by this music.)
W.F. Bach: Symphony in D major, F. 64. Performed by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.
https://youtu.be/1mglhyqdX6k
J.S. Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV 1066. Another live performance by the Netherlands Bach Society with Shunske Sato!
https://youtu.be/DquhZcSwrrI
