Father and Son by Einav Yarden

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach

Einav Yarden

Father and Son

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917295221
Catnr: CC 72952
Release date: 12 May 2023
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917295221

Catalogue number
CC 72952

Release date
12 May 2023

"[...]Einav Yarden's playing is of exemplary limpidity and polyphonic clarity- ★★★★ "

Le Devoir, 16-6-2023

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Einav Yarden: When I first discovered C.P.E Bach’s keyboard music, I remember being completely amazed by its versatility and originality, by its inventiveness, spectrum of expression and its boldness. I was equally astounded by how much he preceded his time, that only one generation away from his father’s High Baroque, and long before the Viennese Classical School fully flourished, he experimented so widely, pushed boundaries tirelessly, and in many ways laid the foundation for what was to become the Classical style. That he influenced Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is clear and known, but one could also argue that he foreshadowed in certain ways the Romantic period.

With this album I wish to shed light on this brilliant composer’s music, but wanted to do so while placing him next to the composer he most admired, but from whom he also needed to diverge and completely redefine himself – his father, Johann Sebastian Bach. The differences are extreme in every parameter, but some interesting parallels also emerge, as in the relationship to the written improvisation, the fantasia and the rondo.

The majority of the C.P.E. Bach pieces on this album were written in the later part of his career, but two of them were written in the 1740’s, in other words while his father was still alive and writing. Each in its way, they offer a window into this interesting transition period in musical style and in C.P.E.’s composition. The works from his later period further unfold his endless originality and ceaseless urge to experiment. The incredible masterpieces of J.S. Bach are milestones of beauty and perfection - and when heard next to the son’s pieces, they further highlight just how far, and in how many directions, the son went.

This recording was made using a Chris Maene Concert Grand built in 2017. This remarkable instrument combines the knowledge and materials used in modern piano building with those found in older historical instruments. The most striking feature is that unlike in modern grand pianos, in which the strings in the bass and middle registers cross, in this instrument all strings run parallel to each other. As a result, it combines the solidity of a modern concert grand piano with the transparent sound ideal of older instruments

Met haar album ‘Father and Son’ belicht pianiste Einav Yarden de muziek van de briljante componist Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. En dat niet alleen, zij combineert zijn muziek met die van de componist die hij het meest bewonderde, maar van wie hij ook afstand moest nemen om zichzelf te ontdekken, inderdaad zijn vader, Johann Sebastian Bach. Het verschil tussen die twee is groot. Toch zijn er interessante overeenkomsten, zoals bij de geschreven improvisatie, de fantasie en het rondo, goed te horen in het uitzonderlijk levendige spel van Einav Yarden. Ontdek het zelf.

Hoewel C.P.E. Bach een grote en fascinerende hoeveelheid muziek voor klavier schreef, hoor je die muziek zelden op de concertpodia. Los van de specialisten die thuis zijn in de historische uitvoeringspraktijk. Toen Einav Yarden de klaviermuziek van C.P.E. Bach ontdekte was ze verbaasd over de veelzijdigheid en originaliteit ervan, over de inventiviteit en expressie, en durf van zijn muziek. Slechts één generatie verwijderd van de Hoge Barok van zijn vader, en lang voordat de Weense Klassieke School volledig opbloeide, experimenteerde Carl Philipp er op los en verlegde hij onvermoeibaar grenzen. Daarmee legde hij in veel opzichten de basis voor wat de Klassieke stijl zou worden. Dat hij Haydn, Mozart en Beethoven beïnvloedde is duidelijk en bekend, maar je kunt ook stellen dat hij in zekere zin een voorbode was van de Romantiek.

Het merendeel van de stukken van C.P.E. Bach op dit album, componeerde hij in het latere deel van zijn carrière. Maar twee ervan schreef hij in de jaren 1740, toen zijn vader nog leefde en componeerde. Die twee zijn elk op hun eigen manier een voorbode van de toen, muzikaal gezien, interessante overgangsperiode en de compositiestijl van Carl Philipp. Zijn latere stukken laten een eindeloze originaliteit en onophoudelijke experimenteerdrift zien. De meesterwerken van vader Bach blinken uit in schoonheid en perfectie en als je ze naast de stukken van de zoon hoort, benadrukken ze eens te meer hoe ver en in hoeveel richtingen de zoon ging.

Einav Yarden speelt in deze opname op een Chris Maene Concert Grand, gebouwd in 2017. In deze opmerkelijke vleugel zijn kennis en materialen van de moderne pianobouw gecombineerd met die van oudere historische instrumenten. De soliditeit van de moderne vleugel in combinatie met het transparante klankideaal van oude instrumenten zorgt voor een bijzonder effect.

Einav Yarden werd in 1978 in Israël geboren. Ze studeerde onder anderen bij de, in 2020 overleden, Amerikaanse pianist en dirigent Leon Fleisher, een van de meest gerenommeerde pianisten en muziekpedagogen ter wereld. Als soliste trad ze op met grote orkesten en dirigenten. Einav is een enthousiast kamermuzikant en wordt regelmatig voor verschillende muziekprojecten uitgenodigd. Ze wordt alom geprezen in de pers. Het Kultur-Magazin van de Duitse radiozender Südwestrundfunk beschrijft het spel van Einav Yarden als: "Stevig en onbekommerd in de snelle delen, broeierig en met volwassen rust in de langzame: Einav Yarden zet vader en zoon Bach tegenover elkaar als gelijkwaardige componisten en demonstreert daarbij haar eigen artistieke kwaliteiten. Yarden is geen pianist die op zoek is naar showeffecten, maar naar essentie, naar waarachtigheid en overtuigingskracht."

Einav Yarden: Als ich zum ersten Mal C.P.E. Bachs Musik für Tasteninstrumente entdeckte, war ich von ihrer Vielseitigkeit und Originalität, von ihrem Erfindungsreichtum und ihrer Kühnheit völlig überwältigt. Ich war ebenso erstaunt darüber, wie sehr er seiner Zeit voraus war. Nur eine Generation nach dem Hochbarock seines Vaters und lange vor der vollen Entfaltung der Wiener Klassik experimentierte C.P.E. Bach unermüdlich, verschob Grenzen und legte in vielerlei Hinsicht den Grundstein für das, was später der klassische Stil werden sollte. Ohne Frage hat er Haydn, Mozart und Beethoven beeinflusst. Man könnte sogar sagen, dass er auf seine Art auf die spätere Epoche der Romantik verweist.

Mit diesem Album möchte ich die Musik dieses brillanten Komponisten beleuchten und ihn neben den Komponisten stellen, den er am meisten bewunderte, von dem er sich aber auch abgrenzen und völlig neu definieren musste - seinen Vater, Johann Sebastian Bach. Die Unterschiede sind in allen Parametern extrem, aber es zeigen sich auch einige interessante Parallelen, wie z. B. das Verhältnis zur geschriebenen Improvisation, zur Fantasie und zum Rondo.

Die meisten Stücke von C.P.E. Bach auf diesem Album stammen aus dem späteren Teil seiner Karriere, aber zwei von ihnen wurden in den 1740er Jahren geschrieben, mit anderen Worten, als sein Vater noch lebte und schrieb. Jedes von ihnen bietet auf seine Weise einen Einblick in diese interessante Übergangsperiode im musikalischen Stil und in C.P.E.s Komposition. Die Werke aus seiner späteren Schaffensperiode lassen seine unendliche Originalität und seinen unaufhörlichen Drang zum Experimentieren noch deutlicher hervortreten. Die unglaublichen Meisterwerke von J.S. Bach sind Meilensteine der Schönheit und Vollkommenheit - und wenn man sie neben den Stücken des Sohnes hört, machen sie noch deutlicher, wie weit und in wie viele Richtungen der Sohn ging.

Artist(s)

Einav Yarden (piano)

Pianist Einav Yarden is praised for her “…imagination and exceptionally vivid playing…Sense of immense majesty, tempered by gentleness and quiet grace” (The Washington Post, USA), and “glistening rapture…ingenious humor” (Der Tagesspiegel, Germany). She appeared as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestera, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Jerusalem Symphony, Bucharest Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic and others, under conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Aldo Ceccato, Steven Sloane, Leon Botstein, Frédéric Chaslin, Simon Halsey and Mendi Rodan. Her engagements over the past seasons include solo performances at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Salle Cortot in Paris, Nikolaisaal in Potsdam, Musis Arnhem in the Netherlands, and a solo performance at the...

Pianist Einav Yarden is praised for her “…imagination and exceptionally vivid playing…Sense of immense majesty, tempered by gentleness and quiet grace” (The Washington Post, USA), and “glistening rapture…ingenious humor” (Der Tagesspiegel, Germany). She appeared as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestera, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Jerusalem Symphony, Bucharest Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic and others, under conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Aldo Ceccato, Steven Sloane, Leon Botstein, Frédéric Chaslin, Simon Halsey and Mendi Rodan.

Her engagements over the past seasons include solo performances at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Salle Cortot in Paris, Nikolaisaal in Potsdam, Musis Arnhem in the Netherlands, and a solo performance at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, subbing in for the international star Daniil Trifonov with just a few hours’ notice, and leaving the audience “deeply overjoyed and impressed” (Piano News, Germany). Other celebrated stages on which she has performed include the Berlin Philharmonie and the Philharmonie Chamber Music Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Concertgebouw de Vereeniging in Nijgmegen, Schumannsaal in Düsseldorf, Musée d’Orsay Auditorium in Paris, and others.

Einav Yarden released three solo CDs on the label Challenge Classics, all of which received highly enthusiastic international acclaim on leading international magazines as Gramophone, Fono Forum, Diapason, Piano News Magazine, Fanfare Magazine, Luister Magazine, International Piano Magazine, Amadeus Magazine and many others. Her Haydn Sonatas CD was awarded the prestigious German Records Critics’ Prize (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik - Bestenliste). Her fourth CD with this label is scheduled to be released in spring 2023.

She is a passionate chamber musician and enthusiastically incorporates unique repertoire into her programs. Major festival appearances include the Ruhr Piano Festival (Germany), La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival (France), Ravinia Festival (USA), Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Menton Festival, and Flâneries Musicales de Reims Festival (France), Piano Biennale Festival (Netherlands), Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, Upper-Galilee Chamber Music Festival (Israel), and others.
Einav Yarden taught chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from 2016-18 and served as part-time substitute professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, and at the Music Conservatory of the Lucerne University and at the in subsequent years. Among her competition awards are top prizes at the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn, the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition and top prizes at the Aviv Competitions in Israel, where she was awarded the piano Guralnik Prize and the prize for best performance of contemporary Israeli work.

She was a longtime student of the legendary pianist Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University), and prior to that studied with Prof. Emanuel Krasovsky at Tel Aviv University, earning high honors for her Bachelors and Masters degrees at both universities. In her youth she studied with Hadassa Gonen at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv. Other strong influences were received from Richard Goode, Elisso Virsaldaze and Prof. Zvi Meniker (on historical pianos). She was a recipient of the AICF scholarships between 1996-2005. She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.

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Composer(s)

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

It can't be easy to have been a son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach was undoubtedly very strict, and if you'd have any composition ambitions, you would have to find a way to step out of the shadow of your father. Luckily, his sons had everything going for them considering their music. Whereas the traditional Baroque music of their father slowly went out of fashion, most of Bach's sons managed to follow the new trends of the early Classicism. In other words: relatively simple, melodic music which is not too heavy on the listener, yet still very passionate. Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach's fifth son, became the most outstanding among his siblings. Like each of Bach's sons, he received a...

Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach's fifth son, became the most outstanding among his siblings. Like each of Bach's sons, he received a solid education from his father, en Carl Philipp developed into a remarkably talented keyboardist. Moreover, he became a prolific composer and of all Bach's sons, he was able to came closest to the quality of his father's work, albeit in a completely different style.

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Press

[...]Einav Yarden's playing is of exemplary limpidity and polyphonic clarity- ★★★★
Le Devoir, 16-6-2023

Pianist Einav Yarden proves to be a qualified interpreter in several respects: on Chris Maene's unique but also relentless grand piano, which, due to its tonal purity, does not forgive even the slightest technical or musical imbalance, her extraordinary pianistic mastery commands respect and admiration from the listener: the artist succeeds in creating a representation that allows both the father's and the son's music to appear with their own stringency. - Performance: 9 Sound:10 Overall: 9
Klassiek-heute.com, 15-6-2023

Listening to Yarden's Bach recordings is simply a pleasure, which is why the recording is entirely recommended.
klassik.com, 17-9-2024

The Israeli pianist combines the music of father and son Bach. If the masterpieces of J.S. Bach are heard alongside those of his son C.P.E. Bach, the latter's bold innovations become even clearer.
Lufthansa In-flight Entertainment, 20-2-2024

"She's got a delightful quicksilver touch for Emanuel Bach and seems to understand how his music fits between the Baroque and Classical periods... There is Bach the Father as well – an English Suite – played with the kind of elemental joy as you'd expect from Glenn Gould."
BBC Radio 3, 13-12-2023

French people, here is your antidote! A crazy exhilaration blows from this program uniting the father Johann Sebastian Bach to his prodigal son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Einav Yarden...Her Haydn and Schumann CDs are marvelous. And this current CD can be listened to over and over again, so much so that the exuberant playing of this artist, her agile, fruity, hypersensitive touch, these subtle phrases always reinvented, hit the nail on the head between the master of counterpoint and baroque dance and the inspired precursor to Mozart and Beethoven. A parallel-stringed grand piano made in 2017 by Chris Maene brings a peppery taste to this irresistible tasting menu.
L'observateur international, 13-12-2023

On this album, the Israeli pianist Einav Yarden (*1978), who partly wrote the liner notes herself, shows off the son's downright bold style in a particularly beautiful and contrasting manner compared to the more conservative, but more profound and also more layered style of the father. It is partly her sharply profiled contrasts between the two composers that make this album even more interesting. The compact modeling and pulsating restlessness in the son's music versus the father's more drawn-out and balanced writing is brought to light in a completely convincing way by Yarden's masterful rhetorical and multi-faceted playing. Thanks to Yarden, the fact that invention is constantly allowed to sparkle in the work of both composers is as unmistakable as the expressive force field that is so strongly evident in these renditions.
Opus Klassiek, 01-12-2023

Israeli pianist living in Berlin, Einav Yarden treated us in 2018 to a superb album dedicated to Robert Schumann. Five years later, German masters still inspire her... Witness Johann Sebastian Bach's spectacular Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor and his English Suite in A minor, interspersed between the heir's works and sounding incredibly fresh thanks to Einav Yarden's fluid, scintillating playing. There's no pretense in this accomplished musician's musical discourse, which is all the more convincing in that it plays the sensitivity card well before virtuosity.
Telerama Magazine, 22-11-2023

What I truly love about Yarden's performances, though, is the way she not only plays the music but inhabits it. The way that she naturally tosses of the abrupt figurations, at first virtuosic and full-bodied, later gentle, even sigh-like—making them feel like real physical gestures, not only musical ones—in C. P. E. Bach's E♭-Major Fantasia is just delightful. Her playing is palpable.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2023

The compositions are rewarding and her modern grand piano sounds terrific.
American Record Guide, 01-9-2023

...Einav Yarden is completely committed to this incomparably fresh tonal language, and in the juxtaposition with cleverly selected piano works by his father, she interprets these works with ravishing elegance. The pleasure of listening is not interrupted at any point, and one is always inspired to smile, indeed, feels inwardly refreshed after hearing these magnificent works... Her touch is exceptional, and the freedom with which she varies the tempi and allows the pauses so cleverly built in by C.P.E. Bach to break in is fascinating...
PianoNEWS Magazine, 01-9-2023

...Yarden tackles the brisker pieces with great joy of playing and virtuosity, and the ornaments are also are wonderfully brilliantly executed, while she plays the quieter passages and movements with great tonal with great tonal sensitivity...Einav Yarden achieves this exceptionally well. She plays very rhythmically and does not get bogged down in details. Just listen to her interpretation of the original C minor rondo wq. 59/4. Conclusion: An impressive juxtaposition of father and son of father and son, which makes you curious for more.
Pianist, 01-9-2023

Yet the centerpiece of the album remains with Bach. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue deploys its vast arabesque, a fabulous setting in which the pianist flies off before leading a fugue as beautiful as a Kupka, of abstract perfection where the lights of the polyphonies dance.
ARTALINNA, 29-8-2023

On her new album, Israeli pianist Einav Yarden confronts two well-known piano works by J.S. Bach with a striking selection of mostly unknown works by the rebellious son, so that the stylistic break between the intact structures of the father and the disruptive ideas of the "baroque terminator" Carl Philipp Emanuel comes to light here spectacularly: the former Leon Fleisher student Yarden uses a fantastically tuned new grand piano by Chris Maene for this, whose parallel stringing positively reinforces the radical clarity of her playing, so that one can hear the extreme dynamic and emotional contrasts and the discontinuous course of C. P.E. Bach's music in skin-deep conciseness.
Rondo Magazine, 17-6-2023

Brisk and untroubled in the fast movements, brooding and with mature calm in the slow ones: Einav Yarden juxtaposes father and son Bach as equal composers and demonstrates her own artistic qualities in the process. Yarden is not a pianist looking for show effects, but for essence, for truthfulness and persuasiveness.
SWR Kultur, 02-6-2023