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Recorded May 2014 in Elebash Hall, City University of New York Graduate Center

http://www.manonhuttondewys.com

American pianist Manon Hutton-DeWys has long been earning praise and recognition for her performances of classical and modern music. In Musical America, Christian Carey wrote: “Hutton-DeWys did an admirable job creating legato lyricism in a solo line that resides amidst a tremendously active accompaniment. Her sensitive dynamic shadings and subtle use of rubato demonstrated an artist possessing a great deal of promise." Hutton-DeWys has performed in some of classical music's best-known venues, including Weill and Zankel Halls at Carnegie Hall and the Salle Cortot at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. She has also recently appeared at Symphony Space, Bargemusic, Steinway Hall, the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, Northeastern and Tufts Universities, and The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, home to radio station WNYC.

Hutton-DeWys holds degrees from Mannes College of Music, Bard College, and Simon's Rock College of Bard. Her former teachers were Jerome Rose and German Diez. Currently, she studies under Thomas Sauer and is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. A native of New York's beautiful Hudson River Valley, Hutton-DeWys currently works as a teacher and freelance pianist in New York City. She is on the piano faculty of Greenwich House Music School and is a member of the executive board of the Piano Teachers' Congress of New York.

Today, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach’s reception and reputation never quite escapes the great shadow of Johann Sebastian, though the tendency to introduce him by that connection undermines the tremendous influence he had in the music world of his time. Haydn graciously credited him as a primary source of inspiration, and Mozart famously asserted that “He is the father, we are the children. Those of us who know anything at all learned it from him.” The A major sonata Wq. 55 no. 4 belongs to the collection of sonatas, rondos, and fantasies entitled Clavier-Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber (Keyboard Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs), issued late in Bach’s life in an effort to secure his posthumous reputation. After the commercial success in 1789 of the first volume, to which this sonata belongs, Bach published five more over the course of eight years, however no successive volume was as popular as the first.

Bach’s music, along with that of a small number of North German contemporaries, comprises what musicologists call the empfindsamer Stil (literally, the sensitive style) for its dramatic contrasts, bold treatment of dissonance, and affectual depth. The A major sonata displays the hallmarks of this style, especially in the second movement. Perhaps most fascinating about this sonata - and the entirety of the Clavier-Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber - is the space it occupies in a curious slice of time too often passed over in music history lessons and textbooks. Here, the baroque period has not totally receded into the distance, but the classical period has yet to reach full bloom. The first movement is a perfect example of sonata form in its embryonic stages for despite its full symphonic sonorities and grand scope, it lacks a contrasting second theme. The second movement takes the form of a baroque aria or lamento, and the third movement falls somewhere between a bright rondo and a loosely constructed sonata movement, packed with material. -Manon Hutton-DeWys