Miklós Spányi

On the penultimate disc in his series of the complete keyboard concertos by C.P.E. Bach, Miklós Spányi completes the set of six concertos (Sei Concerti, Wq 43/1-6) begun on Volume 17. Bach finished working on the set in 1771, but had already advertised its coming publication. In a bid to reach as many potential subscribers as possible, he marketed the works as ‘easy’, and also included optional parts for wind instruments: two horns in all the fast movements, replaced by flutes in the slow movements. Bach’s aim was to make the works appealing to both players and listeners, and the result is a set of highly attractive pieces, with approachable melodies and dance rhythms but also displaying a new freedom with regard to conventional concerto form. With the expert support of the Hungarian period band Concerto Armonico, Miklós Spányi performs the solo parts of Wq 43/5 and 43/6 on a harpsichord, a copy of an instrument from 1745. Inspired by the English harpsichords that were imported in great number to Northern Germany during Bach’s time, this instrument has been fitted with a so-called ‘swell device’, enabling the performer to achieve dynamic shadings and crescendo-diminuendo effects consistent with the instructions in Bach’s scores. Some seven years after the Sei Concerti, Bach composed the concertos in G major (Wq 44) and D major (Wq 45) – two works which, although composed in the same year, are strikingly different in character, evidence of Bach’s continuing desire to give each new work a distinctive identity. This has led Miklós Spányi to choose to perform the Wq 44 concerto on a fortepiano from 1798, by the English maker Broadwood, returning to the harpsichord for the final work on the disc.

Miklós Spányi continues his traversal of the keyboard concertos of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a series which in Gramophone has been called a ‘unique monument to one of the 18th century's most underrated composers’.

Spányi joins forces with the Hungarian period band Concerto Armonico, and together they offer us the first four works in a set of six, the Sei Concerti per il cembalo concertato.

Composed during the early 1770s, the Sei Concerti were among the few concertos that C.P.E. Bach didn’t write specifically for himself to play. Bach’s aim was to make the works appealing to both players and listeners

For these works, Miklós Spányi has chosen to perform the solo part on a harpsichord, a copy of an instrument from 1745 by the Antwerp builder Joannes Daniel Dulcken.

Miklós Spányi continues from the previous volume of this series by presenting keyboard sonatas composed in 1744, a year of great significance in C.P.E. Bach’s development as a composer.

Beside three sonatas from that year, the programme includes an earlier and a later work: the very substantial 1740 Sonata in G major, Wq65/12, and the Sonata in F major, Wq65/21 composed 1747. Many sonatas of this period are serious ‘grand’ sonatas intended for professional players.

Miklós Spányi performs these works on the clavichord – an instrument favoured by C.P.E. Bach himself, and for which Spányi has a particular affinity.

This disc features works from a hugely productive period of C.P.E Bach’s career between 1740 and 1744.

In these years two ambitious sets of six sonatas – the ‘Prussian’ (1740-41) and the ‘Württemberg’(1742-44) – were published along with a number of other sonatas of a similar scale. On this disc, four such sonatas have been included.

Miklós Spányi plays these works on a newly built clavichord by the eminent builder Joris Potvlieghe.

In his acclaimed series of C.P.E. Bach's music for solo keyboard, Miklós Spányi has constructed a programme consisting of four sonatas from the 1750's, including the closing Sonata in A major (Wq65/32).

The sonatas are interspersed with a number of shorter pieces: Solfeggios and Fantasias composed mainly to be used in the teaching of Bach's own students.

Particularly interesting is the Fantasia in D major, Wq117/14, an example of Bach's ‘free fantasias’ which is completely unmeasured, requiring the performer to devise his or her own appropriate rhythm in the style of an improvisation.

Of his most recent disc in the series, International Record Review wrote 'Anyone expecting a chaste, Dresden-china simplicity is in for a culture schock as Spányi probes beneath the surface of Bach's highly articulate musical surfaces with a temporal plasticity that creates the impression of living, breathing musical organisms.'

Miklós Spányi here performs Achtzehn Probe-Stücke in Sechs Sonaten (Eighteen Sample Pieces in Six Sonatas), written in 1753 for the benefit of his keyboard students.

Spányi performs these works on the clavichord basing his decision on Bach’s documented preference for this particular keyboard instrument, but also on the fact that the scores include occasional symbols for ‘Bebung’, or vibrato, an effect possible only on the clavichord.

In the Six Sonatas with Varied Reprises, published in 1760, Bach thoughtfully provided written-out ‘improvisations’ for sections that are to be repeated instead of relying on performers to create their own.

In these five sonatas from the 1760s, the period prior to C.P.E. Bach’s departure from Frederick the Great’s court in Berlin, we find some of his most attractive writing, in the opinion of Darrell M. Berg, author of the liner notes to this disc and general editor of the complete edition of the composer’s works. Miklós Spányi has acquired a reputation as a leading interpreter and firm advocate of this music. He has here chosen to perform it on C.P.E. Bach’s own favourite keyboard instrument, the clavichord. Spányi’s ground-breaking work in this series, and in the parallel one of the same composer’s keyboard concertos, will be familiar to many lovers of early keyboard music. Volume 17 of this series was selected as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, and described as ‘the answer to clavichord fans' dreams’.

Volume 19 features music from the 1760s. Spányi performs on a tangent piano, a variant of the fortepiano with a number of possibilities for adapting the timbre and dynamics. The results are striking especially in the sets of variations, but also in the more ‘orchestral’ pieces with their rich timbres and dynamic contrasts.

Two of the works on this disc, the Concertos in F major and in E flat major, were composed soon after Bach’s move to Hamburg. The Concerto in C minor had been composed some 20 years earlier and the composer himself described it as ‘one of my showpieces’, implying that he performed it regularly. In Hamburg, Bach adapted to the strong musical traditions of the time, including a particular love for the harpsichord..

In an interesting essay in the booklet to this disc, Miklós Spányi discusses this background, explaining his reasons for performing two of the works on the tangent piano, and the third on the harpsichord. The previous installment of Spányi’s highly regarded series was described by Classic FM Magazine as ‘bubbling with life in BIS’s crisp recorded sound.’