I’m usually a morning person, but some days it’s just hard. A little music can usually turn the day around – Johann Sebastian Bach‘s HarpsichordConcerti always do the trick.
What’s the secret to this piece’s ‘get-up-and-go’ attitude? Constant 16th-note motion. Throughout the piece, there is nearly always a voice in the ensemble which has moving 16th-notes, which gives the piece a constant rhythmic drive. The negative effect of this has earned this style of baroque music the nickname ‘typewriter music.’
Henry Purcell is probably the best-known English composer of the baroque era. To this day, he is revered in England much like Bach is revered in Germany – as the father of their musical heritage. He is buried next to the organ in Westminster Abbey, where was organist.
“Hear My Prayer” is a somber setting of the first verse of Psalm 102. The lamentations of the psalmist are clearly heard in the chromaticism of the music.
All the Bach children were musical, and probably not by choice. Most musicians agree that Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was the best composer among them. After all, when Mozart said “Bach is the father, and we are his children,” he was not referring to J.S., but C.P.E.
C.P.E.’s music is a perfect midpoint between the Baroque and Classical musical eras, combining the ornateness and richness of the baroque with the transparency and grace of the classic. This isn’t the heavy, confusing sound of his father’s late compositions, nor is it the mindless, simple noodling of Scarlatti.
Shortly after graduating with a degree in law (like any good musician does), he was appointed a musical post in the court of Frederick the Great, who was known as a great patron of the arts, and was himself a flutist. It’s easy to imagine this flute concerto being performed by Frederick, with C.P.E. conducting and playing the keyboard, as is portrayed in this painting.
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