Although he has done so in a bewildering array of one-off projects for an amazing variety of labels -- Orfeo, Arte Nova, Oehms Classics, and here on the Japanese label Camerata -- pianist
Anthony Spiri has more than demonstrated his feel and facility with the keyboard music of the
Bach family. Carl Philip Emanuel Bach: Piano Works 1765-1786 is
Spiri's second shot at
Bach "Son No. 2," although it was apparently released first. It is unusual in that, rather than utilizing the fortepiano, which
Spiri tends to favor,
Bach's music is heard on a modern Steinway grand. No big deal, certainly, as it has been long established that the music of
C.P.E. Bach sounds just as well on the modern piano as on the instruments common to his day. This collection focuses on the part of
C.P.E. Bach's output for the keyboard that dates from his final years in Hamburg and opens with a piece never before recorded, the Variationes mit veränderten Reprisen, H. 259. One can understand its neglect, as it opens with a very unpromising-sounding theme that seems intractably wedded to its time and place; it is in the variations section, where
C.P.E. Bach begins to take this vapid little ditty apart under his empfindsamer microscope, that the piece comes alive. The remainder is made up of fantasias, sonatas, and various short movements, several taken from
Bach's multi-volume publication Sonaten, frieie fantasien und Rondos für Kenner und Liebhaber, including what some believe to be the definitive statement of
Bach's late keyboard music, Abscheid von meinem Silbermannischen Claviere (Farewell to my Silbermann Clavier). While
Spiri accentuates the eccentricities, variability, and highly emotional content of the music, he never loses sight of
Bach's overall plan -- the music is "free" without being chaotic. Camerata's recording is beautifully made, as usual, and if anyone had need to make the case for
C.P.E. Bach as a predecessor to
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Anthony Spiri's Carl Philip Emanuel Bach: Piano Works 1765-1786 would provide ample ammunition.