Mozart
said that anyone who looked hard enough would hear the ways in which he was influenced by
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
, but in the case of the sonatas for violin and piano of
Bach
's eldest son, one doesn't have to look very hard. Although it was beginning to break free, the violin in
's sonatas still had a basically accompanimental function in most of them, and the title used in
's time (and as far forward as
Beethoven
), "sonata for pianoforte and violin," was entirely appropriate. With the sonatas of
C.P.E. Bach
, however, the violin, for the most part, has a fully independent role and even controls the proceedings. Consider the first movement of the
Violin Sonata in C minor, H. 514, Wq 78
, as an example. Partly this is because
C.P.E.
, even late in life, drew to some extent on Baroque models; he was offering not light classical keyboard pieces adorned by a violin but works influenced by violin-and-harpsichord sonatas from earlier in the 18th century. Some of these were by
J.S. Bach
, and violinist
Rachel Podger
and keyboardist
Kristian Bezuidenhout
do well to offer the
Violin Sonata in G minor, H. 542.5
, the earliest piece on the album and one that has been attributed to both
and
. It is a fascinating little slice of the family lore, and it seems most likely to have been a teaching piece of some kind.
Podger
's 1739
Pesarinius
violin is an expressive instrument, and
Bezuidenhout
plays two instruments with some muscle, a copy of a
Walter
fortepiano by the builder
Paul McNulty
in the later pieces and a double-manual harpsichord by
Keith Hill
in the earlier one. The latter especially seems to fit
's jagged style to a T, and even listeners less familiar with the stylistic issues will find this an unusually satisfying recording; enough did so to place this album on classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2023. ~ James Manheim