Apero-concert: Bach

Show & Culture

From Bach to Beethoven, from baroque music to Viennese classicism, this concert traces a lineage in which the link is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. It is said that J.S. Bach was not fond of his younger son’s style – this Empfindsamkeit (literally: sentimentality) that aimed to touch the listener directly in the heart. Yet, if there is music that speaks directly to the heart, it is the Fifth Concerto by the Cantor of Leipzig, with its delicate, weightless slow movement. The contrast with Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto is striking: two lively, bright movements surround a stunning slow movement where the orchestra rebuffs the piano’s pleas. Perhaps the most beautiful of Beethoven’s concertos.