Symphony Preview: Bach family values at Powell Hall Friday and Saturday, January 30 and 31, 2015

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As anyone who has ever taken a "music depreciation" course knows, Johann Sebastian Bach was almost as prolific a father as he was a composer. This weekend, Nicholas McGegan leads the St. Louis Symphony in a concert that's a genuine Bach family affair, featuring music by both J.S. Bach and two of his musical sons.

"Statue of J.S. Bach in Leipzig" by Zarafa
at the English language Wikipedia.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
via Wikimedia Common

Bach and his two wives, Maria Barbara and Anna Magdalena, had a total of twenty children, ten of whom survived to adulthood (yes, child mortality in 18th century Germany was fierce). Four of the ten went on to careers as composers and the two represented in this weekend's concerts—Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian—went on to eclipse dad in popularity, at least during their lives.

But that, as they say, was then. Now, performances of the music of Bach's offspring are relatively rare. According to bachtrack.com, for example, J.S. Bach was the third most performed composer in 2014. The kids didn't even make the top ten. No surprise, then, that the "Sinfonia concertante in C major for Flute, Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Orchestra" by J.C. on the bill this weekend is getting its SLSO premiere and the "Sinfonia in D Major" by C.P.E. hasn't been heard here since 1987.

C.P.E. Bach was born in 1714, when his dad was not quite 31. By the time he began composing in his 20s, musical styles were changing. While still heavily influenced by his father's strict contrapuntal principles, C.P.E. wrote music that was much more expressive and dramatic than anything J.S. would ever have considered. He was a proponent of something called empfindsamer Stil (literally, "sensitive style"), an approach characterized, in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, by "an emphasis upon the expression of a variety of deeply felt emotions within a musical work." In that respect, C.P.E. looks forward not only to the Classical period but to the Romantic as well.

"Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel 1"
by Franz Conrad Löhr (1735–1812)[1]
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, M.589.
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons

Even today, some of his music has a decidedly "modern" feel. C.P.E. Bach's compositional style, as musicologist Ann Richards has written, "is miles away from the elegance and balance we associate with this period. Timelines are crisscrossed, he is endlessly stopping and starting, wrong-footing the listener and causing his audience to reconsider its relation to the music. In that sense, it's very postmodern, a kind of meta-music." As you'll hear this weekend, C.P.E.'s "Sinfonia in D Major" (which dates from around the time of the American revolution) is typical, filled with the idiosyncratic and unconventional touches that characterize his work.

Right around the time that C.P.E. was writing that "Sinfonia", J.C. Bach was writing his contribution to this weekend's program, the "Sinfonia concertante in C major for Flute, Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Orchestra." J.C. Bach was born towards the end of J.S. Bach's life. His father was fifty when J.C. was born and would die when the boy was only fifteen. As a result, his music owes less to J.S. than does that of his older sibling. J.C. wrote mostly in the "galante" style, which Merriam Webster concisely defines as "a light and elegant free homophonic style of musical composition in the 18th century with rococo ornamentation as contrasted with the serious fugal style of the baroque era." Galante music pretty much abandoned counterpoint in favor of melody and accompaniment. It would, when combined with a renewed interest in counterpoint, form the basis of the Classical style that would find its greatest expression in the instrumental works of Haydn and Mozart.

J.C. Bach is sometimes referred to as the "London" Bach because he spent so much time there, eventually becoming music master to King George III's wife Charlotte. Unlike his older brother, J.C. outlived his earlier professional success. The galante style began to go out of style in the 1770s and J.C., swindled out of his wealth by his steward, died in poverty. Fortunately, Queen Charlotte covered the expense of his funeral and set up a small pension for his widow.

Johann Christian Bach, painted in London by
Thomas Gainsborough, 1776
(National Portrait Gallery, London)
en.wikipedia.org

There are three pieces by J.S. Bach on the bill as well: the "Sinfonia" (essentially the overture) to his secular cantata "Non sa che sia dolore" (BWV 209), the "Concerto in D minor for Oboe, Violin, and Strings" (BWV 1060), and his popular "Orchestral Suite No. 3."

Apparently written for the Leipzig Collegium Musicum (of which Bach was then the director) in 1729, the suite is an appealing collection of four dances preceded by a short "French overture" (the name possibly refers to the fact that the form first appears in the operas of Jean Baptiste Lully) with its characteristic majestic opening followed by a main section. As Paul Schiavo points out in his program notes, it's the most popular of the four suites, with a second movement that has become famous all on its own under the title "Air on the G String."

"At the season's New Year's Eve concert," recalls SLSO Principal Trumpet Karin Bliznik in an interview in the program book, "David Robertson excerpted and dedicated the Air--movement II of the Suite--to one of our ailing but now recovering colleagues. What a great reminder of the universal healing elements of classical music." She's also happy about the prominent role played by her instrument in the suite, reminding us that this is "the first of the orchestral suites to include not just one but three trumpets."

Finally, a quick note about guest conductor Nicholas McGegan. A specialist in what was once called "early music" Mr. McGegan is, as I have noted before, one of the most ebullient podium personalities you are ever likely to see. He bounds on to the stage, his face alight with a cherubic smile, his body language was saying: "this is going to be FUN!" If you think Baroque music is a stodgy business, you've never seen it conducted by Mr. McGegan.

The essentials: Nicholas McGegan conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a program of music by the Johann Sebastian Bach family on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., January 30 and 31. Soloists are Andrea Kaplan and Jennifer Nitchman, flutes; Jelena Dirks and Philip Ross, oboe; Asako Kuboki and Ann Fink, violin; and Melissa Brooks, cello. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.