Rococo

‘Play’ is the linking characteristic between the three pieces on this recording. Playing with style, through means of travesty and illegality. Playing with ‘double entendres’, disguises and betrayals. A playfulness that takes pleasure in the foiling of conventions, the conducting of formalities with a nod and a wink, in the challenging of dogmatism and overthrowing of rules.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (or rather, CPE Bach) was working at a time of saturation in musical history, a moment when rules of play were being experimented with. Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky in their neo-classical phases were playing with borrowed rituals and gestures resulting in the eclectic and anachronistic works on this recording. In addition, both Russians contributed greatly to the ballet music genre and in these two pieces, the dance influence is strongly felt. What else is dance than the ultimate play?
Officially, CPE Bach wrote in the Empfindsamer Stil, a transitory style similar to the kindred Rococo. A style which only briefly reveals its identity and essence, rather like a chemical element with a very short lifespan. But what a unique essence, with its unprecedented suggestion of the sensitive, not to mention the sensual and illegal. Exactly the mood that the artist Fragonard captures in his iconic Rococo painting ‘The Swing’.