ALAIN MARION & DANIELE ROI - CAR PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH (High Resolution Audio)

CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH (1714-1788)

Sonata in re maggiore n. 1

(Potsdam 1747 - Wotquenne 83)

Allegro un poco

Largo

Allegro

Sonata n.1 in si bemolle maggiore

(Berlino 1738 - Wotquenne 125)

Adagio

Allegro

Vivace

Sonata n. 2 in re maggiore

(Berlino 1738 - Wotquenne 126)

Largo

Allegro

Vivace (tema con due variazioni)

Sonata n. 3 in sol maggiore 

(Berlino 1739 - Wotquenne 127)

Adagio

Allegro

Vivace

Sonata n. 4 in re maggiore

(Berlino 1740 - Wotquenne 129)

Adagio

Allegro

Vivace

Sonata n. 5 in si bemolle maggiore 

(Berlino 1746 – Wotquenne 130)

Largo

Allegro

Allegro

Sonata in sol maggiore “di Amburgo”

(Amburgo 1786 - Wotquenne 133)

Allegretto

Rondò – Presto

Durata: 01h 10’

ALAIN MARION 

At the age of 14, Alain Marion passes with flying colours the finals of the Conservatoire at Marseille, the town where he was born, and where he had been studying with Joseph Rampal. He comes to Paris to have lessons with Jean-Pierre Rampal, and in 1961 is a prise winner at the International Music competition at Geneva and gives several concerts for the J.M.F. (Musical Youth of France). In 1964, he is appointed first flute in the French radio Chamber Orchestra. As a founder-member of the Orchestre de Paris, then soloist in the Orchestre National de France as well as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Alain Marion has had the opportunity of working with such renowned conductors as Charles Munch, Bernstein, Martinon, Karajan, Celibidache, Boulez, Maazel, Ozawa, Giulini, Boehm, Klemperer, Solti, Mehta, etc. His concert tours have taken him not only across Europe but also into North Africa, Central and North America, the Near and the Far East. He performs both classical and modern works, and has played as soloist under Claudio Scimone, J. Marinon, J-F Paillard, K. Ristenpart, Karl Richter, and Berio, Ivo Malec, Marius Constant, Pierre Boulez and Michel Tabachnik. Alain Marion is a soloist for Radio France and many other foreign radios. He has been invited to take part in the festivals of Bordeaux, Menton, La Rochelle, Aix-en-Provence, Hong-Kong, Winegards, and others. Alain Marion also plays chamber music with Jessye Norman, YoYo Ma, Pascal Roge, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Alexandre Lagoya, etc. He teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and is a teacher at the International Summer School in Nice, as well as teaching at the Academy of the Mozarteum in Salzburg where he was invited by Rolf Liebermann. Shortly to appear: a video cassette produced by Frédéric Rossif and Télé Hachette, Mozart with the Polish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk. (CBS - Sony). In 1986 he will give two recitals at the Carnegie Hall one of which will be at the invitation of Jean-Pierre Rampal. Alain Marion has been invited to be director of the "Nouvelle Académie International d'Eté de Nice" as of summer 1985. 

DANIELE ROI

Daniele Roi studied with Micaela Mingardo Angeleri and then with Paul Badura-Skoda, Franco Gulli and Enrica Cavallo, Huguette Dreyfus. His musical activity has developed as soloist, with orchestras and above all in the field of chamber music, playing for national and foreign radio-television corporations and collaborating also with Riccardo Chailly, UtoUghi, Bruno Giuranna, Peter Lukas Graf, Kenneth Gilbert, Alain Marion, Jean Pierre Rampal. He also has activity as harpsichordist in many chamber orchestras with concerts in Europe, south America and Australia, and recordings about instrumental and vocal music. He has been the harpsichordist in the opera by Vivaldi "Orlando Furioso" in Paris, at the Theatre du Chatelet with Marilyn Horne. Daniele Roi was borne in Padova where he teaches piano.

CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714 and died in Hamburg in 1778. His work was determinant for German composers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as distant disciples of J.S. Bach's second son, are sufficient to prove his importance. Even today, someone wishing to find a precise point of reference for the familiarization and the interpretation of instrumental music between the late Ba-roque and early Classical eras, cannot help but take into consideration C.P.E. Bach's work including his theoretic contribution, (particularly the fundamental "Versuchüber die wahre Art das Clavier zuspielen"). Bach's musical biography can be linked to two principal periods of his life; his move to Berlin in 1738, with his appointment to the post of harpsichordist at the court of Frederick the Great from 1740, and his transfer to Hamburg in 1768 as successor to Telemann. In both cities, Bach had the opportunity to frequent culturally prominent circles, and he enjoyed considerable fame. The compositions presented on this record date from these two periods. The first six Sonatas were written in Berlin, and the last in Hamburg, barely two years prior to Bach's death. This distinction, while seeming to be merely geographical, has, nevertheless, a specifically musical validity. Stylistic distinctions will be evident to the listener, and these can be defined by noting that in the first Sonatas, Emanuel Bach was still under a certain paternal influence, whereas the last, (written forty years later), shows him to have absorbed characteristics of the most contemporary musical language. In other words, a transition between the late Baroque and Classical eras is apparent, as much aesthetic as technical. Consider, for example, the stately progression of the melodic lines in the slow movements, with their typically broad phrasing, the often-impervious intervals, and a continually renewed chromaticism which results in an asymmetry, clearly distant from the regular cadences of the "galant" melodies. Consider, also, the contrapuntal structure of the relationship between solo and continuo parts, the shape of certain fugal incipits, themes with characteristics more of contrapuntal subject matter than of a cantabile melody, the persistent progression, the pedals, the shifting barlines for purposes of syncopation, and so on. However, above all there is a certain serious quality to C.P.E. Bach's music which does not individualize it from that of his father. On the contrary, the later Sonata presents an entirely different musical ambiance, not so much for it's clear use of "Sonata Form" (already in use, although with exceptions, in preceeding works such as the finale of the Sonata Wotq. 83), but rather for the ease of style which is derived from the use of an accompaniment devoid of contrapuntal features (that is to say that it is based on simple rhythmic/harmonic devices), for the cantabile qualities and the regularity of the melodies, for the virtuosic and brilliant ornamentation, for the vivacity of the solo part (the true and only protagonist of the composition), and, finally, for the clearly structured two movements. Of the Berlin compositions, the Sonatas Wotq. 125-127, and Wotq. 129-130, on this record the second to sixth), are presented. They show the same succession of movements (Lento-Allegro-Vivace), that was employed by many Italian musicians of the early eighteenth century, as opposed to the custom of placing a slow movement in the middle which was to follow. It is more significant, however, to observe that the stylistic and dynamic characteristics are substantially unchanging. After the slow movement, there is always a 2/4 - 3/8 sequence. More interesting again is the fact that the opening movement is always a rather evocative cantabile with melodies rich in flowing syncopation, anticipation, delays, and chromaticism as was usual in baroque ornamentation. The middle movement is always structurally more substantial, and often opens with a fugato, thereby lending a severity to the music which is then maintained throughout (the "Sonata Form" even becomes unrecognisable at times). The finale, on the other hand, would appear to be the lightest of the movements, almost a minuet in the "galant" style, yet never losing it's serious quality even in the case of variations (as in the Sonata Wotq. 126). It has been said that the Sonata dating from the Hamburg period derives from a "galant" sensibility which conceeds much to the pleasure of the listener. This, however, does not mean that C. P. E. Bach distanced himself radically from the preceeding "seriousness" in order to adopt the facile fashions of the time and the simple tastes of the dilettanti. The solid construction of the two movements, and the limpidity of the direction of the musical ideas is once again clear, and the soloistic virtuosity, while never lacking, does not prevaricate. It is here that Emanuel's true fidelity to his father, Johann Sebastian, lies. 

Federico Marri

Translation by Nicola Swallow