Music

PROGRAM
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Symphony in D, Wq 183/1
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Magnificat
Johann Sebastian Bach – “Symbolum Nicenum” (Credo) from Mass in B-minor

Jerome Hoberman leads the Hong Kong Bach Choir and Orchestra as it concludes its 2016-17 season in music of Johann Sebastian Bach together with that of the most illustrious of his 20 children, on Sunday, 28 May at 8:00 p.m. at the City Hall Concert Hall in Central.

Together with the central part—the “Symbolum Nicenum” or Credo—from J.S. Bach’s renowned Mass in B-minor, the programme includes two works by Carl Philipp Emanuel (C.P.E.) Bach: the Magnificat and the Symphony in D.

C.P.E. Bach was probably the most famous composer of his time—far better known throughout Europe than his father, who had been his primary teacher. After serving for 30 years as court harpsichordist to Frederick the Great of Prussia, he ended his career as municipal music director in Hamburg, where he succeeded his godfather, Georg Philipp Telemann. C.P.E. Bach’s historical importance is as a bridge between the Baroque style of his father and the Classical formal perfection of Haydn and Mozart, but for us today it is simply the brilliance and emotional expressiveness of his music that carries us irresistibly into his world.

C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat was composed in Berlin in 1749 while J.S. Bach was still alive, and it is obvious when listening to it that the son was well acquainted with his father’s now-better-known Magnificat in the same key. The Symphony in D is one of four that C.P.E. Bach composed later, in Hamburg, and is an early and very adventurous example of a form that would be brought to maturity very soon after, in Vienna, by Haydn.

Along with the Choir and Orchestra, featured in this performance are soprano Alison Lau, mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong, tenor Stephen Ng, and baritone Caleb Woo.