July 15, 2015

  • Innovative Baroque Music By Fasch

     Fasch: Overture Symphonies
    Les Amis de Philippe/Ludger Remy
    CPO 777 952-2
    Total Time:  75:27
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    While most fans of Baroque music tend to revel in some of the more familiar works of the period, the continued exploration of different musical regions continues to yield a multitude of discoveries.  A little over a hundred years ago, the famed musicologist Hugo Riemann was among the first to turn attention to the music of Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758).  Fasch was the court chapel master in Zerbst for the last 36 years of his life, though his music would still be quite popular in Dresden.  Earlier experience in Dresden had exposed him to the concerti of Vivaldi and the work of the court composer Johann Georg Pisendel, whom he had met in Leipzig earlier in his career, and who had studied with the Italian master.

    Fasch’s music is striking for its exploration of instrumental sounds that is often quite innovative for the period.  His concerti are perhaps some of the more intriguing works from his Dresden period.  They both incorporate current directions and would shape the musical style of the region far after he left.  The ritornello form of these works allowed them to show off the local virtuosi as well as the great smaller ensemble capabilities.   As his music is explored more, one finds that it in many ways was a fine precursor to the style and sound of what would become Classical style.

    Nowhere is this more evident than in a series of works he would call “Overture Symphonies”.  These works begin to appear about 1740.  These titles represent a shift away from the more Baroque “overture suite”.  In that genre, a French overture style opens what is essentially a collection of dance pieces.  Sometimes these works would explore wind instrument colors.  It is the latter that is perhaps most striking in the music Fasch would eventually compose, somewhat bringing together the ideas of the concerti into this new “genre”.  Some of these “symphonies” would feature 4 four movements.  However, the five selected for this release are examples of Fasch exploring the three-movement Italian sinfonia.

    Here the music is given more weight with blends of polyphonic writing, demonstrating Fasch’s apt ability to explore fugal contrapuntal textures, and a more homophonic melodic style.  An opening “overture’” with a third-movement “Allegro” all frame slow movements.  These tend to be binary, or more through-composed in nature.  The first of these, in D (FWV. K. D2) features three trumpets and stylistically is similar to Handel’s familiar Water Music suites.  What is more striking is the intriguing harmonic shifts that abounds in this first work often moving back and forth between major and minor harmonic areas, but sometimes landing in quite unexpected places.  Others may hear a similarity in some of these works to the work of Telemann, though in Fasch there seems to be a more Italianate line and a great deal of musical wit and surprise.  The different “solo” instruments (usually winds or brass in these works) are used in a manner similar to a concerto grosso.  The pieces have a great dramatic flair with emotional intensity helping to make these very engaging works.  The appeal of the brass works on this release should make this an easy sell as the music is quite superb and the sounds wonderful in these interpretations.

    The notes for this CPO recording do a perfect job of helping walk through the period and the significance of these works which deserve a wider audience.  The music could not be in more capable hands here.  Les Amis de Philippe is a group of musicians dedicated to exploring the music of C.P.E. Bach and his contemporaries thus making them quite capable of providing the sort of careful detail and nuance these pieces need.  Three of them are recorded here for the first time.  The result is an important, and quite generous, release of music by this great Baroque/Rococo master.