DESCRIPTION:
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)

Symphony in E minor, Wq. 178 [H. 653] (1756)

00:00 - Allegro assai
03:58 - Andante moderato
07:40 - Allegro

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (2001)

"The E minor Symphony of 1756 (Wq. 178), a version of which without the winds (Wq. 177) was the only one of Bach's Berlin symphonies to be published during his lifetime (Nuremberg, 1756), seems to conquer new areas of freedom of invention. The main theme of the opening 'Allegro assai' harbors a hitherto unheard of tension and engenders a display of rhythmic fireworks in which the occasional cantabile sprinklings are dispersed like helpless expostulations. An even more important aspect than this intensification of the notion of contrast, however, is Bach's concept of underpinning the cyclic design of the symphony with a harmonic interlinking of the individual movements, in defiance of all the textbooks -- a formal artifice that proves that in spite of all his capricious audacities and surprises, Bach never loses sight of the clarity of the overall architecture." - Roman Hinke

Painting: Seascape study with raincloud, John Constable