Seasons > 2006-07 Season > Concerts >

Pre-Classical Concertos

Thursday January 25, 2007, 8:00 pm

With the Franz Joseph quartet. Sturm und Drang and Rococo concertos for traverso by Franz Xavier Richter, Johann Stamitz, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

If there is a particularly discredited period in the history of music, it is surely the years from the end of Bach’s life up to the flourishing of the great Viennese classicists, Haydn and Mozart. Nevertheless, if we look at it closely, this period that we rather pejoratively refer to as pre-Classical seems like a veritable laboratory, one that saw the rise of Germanic musical genius. Beyond the superficial yet charming grace of the style galant, there were movements proposing to redefine affective expression, such as Empfindsamkeit and Strum und Drang, upsetting the foundations of the Baroque and already announcing Romanticism. Besides which, in the instrumental domain, numerous composers were preoccupied with the development of the concerto, the creation of the symphony, and the refining of the sonata forms. Considered as an instrument of great sensitivity, the flute valiantly held on to its role, with sonatas and concertos featuring its delicacy in equal measure with its virtuosic qualities. (FF)

This concert is being recorded by Espace Musique, the music station of Radio Canada (100.7 in Montreal) and will be broadcast at a later date.
Recording producer: Richard Lavallée; General manager of Espace Musique: Christiane LeBlanc.