Keith Jarrett goes classic: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1994).

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Keith Jarrett plays C.P.E. Bach: Württemberg Sonatas

Keith Jarrett’s account of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas is a revelation. “I’d heard the sonatas played by harpsichordists, and felt there was room for a piano version,” says Jarrett today.

This outstanding recording, made in 1994 and previously unreleased, finds the pianist attuned to the expressive implications of the sonatas in every moment. The younger Bach’s idiosyncrasies: the gentle playfulness of the music, the fondness for subtle and sudden tempo shifts, the extraordinary, rippling invention…all of this is wonderfully delivered. The fluidity of the whole performance has a quality that perhaps could be conveyed only by an artist of great improvisational skills. In Jarrett’s hands, CPE’s exploration of new compositional forms retains the freshness of discovery. Recorded at Keith Jarrett’s Cavelight Studio in May 1994, the album includes liner notes by Paul Griffiths.

PERSONNEL:

• Keith Jarrett – (solo piano)

Recorded on May 1994, Cavelight Studio

TRACKS:

• LP ONE

• A1. I. Moderato (Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, H. 30)
• A2. II. Andante (Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, H. 30)
• A3. III. Allegro assai (Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, H. 30)
• A4. I. Un poco allegro (Sonata No. 2 in A-Flat Major, H. 31)

• B1. II. Adagio (Sonata No. 2 in A-Flat Major, H. 31)
• B2. III. Allegro (Sonata No. 2 in A-Flat Major, H. 31)
• B3. I. Allegro (Sonata No. 3 in E Minor, H. 33)
• B4. II. Adagio (Sonata No. 3 in E Minor, H. 33)
• B5. III. Vivace (Sonata No. 3 in E Minor, H. 33)
• _________________________________________
• LP TWO

• C1. I. Un poco allegro (Sonata No. 4 in B-Flat Major, H. 32)
• C2. II. Andante (Sonata No. 4 in B-Flat Major, H. 32)
• C3. III. Allegro (Sonata No. 4 in B-Flat Major, H. 32)
• C4. I. Allegro (Sonata No. 5 in E-Flat Major, H. 34)

• D1. II. Adagio (Sonata No. 5 in E-Flat Major, H. 34)
• D2. III. Allegro assai (Sonata No. 5 in E-Flat Major, H. 34)
• D3. I. Moderato (Sonata No. 6 in B Minor, H. 36)
• D4. II. Adagio non molto (Sonata No. 6 in B Minor, H. 36)
• D5. III. Allegro (Sonata No. 6 in B Minor, H. 36)

With Keith Jarrett having put an end to his career after two brain spills in 2018 that left serious sequelae, each launch of an unpublished album gives his audience the feeling of a magnificent respite. As an eternal post-consideration reminder. ECM, the historic American pianist seal, has published a splendid version of the Sonatas de Würtvelg of CPE Bach.

Keith Jarrett is a man of contrasts, if not contradictions. His media discretion contrasts with his megalomania on stage, where the public has to become a wax statue, or risk provoking the anger of the improvising pianist, capable of abandoning the stage for a simple cough or a whisper, as the Public from La Salle Pleyel in July 2014.

Their professional choices are also contrasting, which are navigating between jazz -whose improvisation approaches It renews radically, especially in trios- and the most rigorous baroque, without ever trying building bridges between both genres, unlike many of its colleagues. Extreme perfectionist when it comes to the conditions in which it touches, it has been more flexible in its relations with the chief of ECM , Manfred Eicher, accepting the publication of some less inspired works (such as the revisited ballads of The Melody At Night, with you , 1999). An enigmatic artist, then, capable of the most solemn flashes of genius.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1945, Keith Jarrett began studying music at an early age and soon felt comfortable enough to devote himself to composition. After a season at Berklee School of Music in Boston, where he took his first steps with a trio, moved to New York. In 1967, he recorded his first trio album with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian , Life Between The Exit Sign (Vortex). In the early 70s he joined the Miles Davis band and began a long collaboration with ECM for Facing You , the first album of a long series.

But the consecration took place on January 24, 1975. The event, which occurred by chance, is all the more mythical as it almost never took place. That day, Jarrett was invited to give a solo concert at the Colonia opera. The Bösendorfer piano planned for the action was not available and told him that he would have to settle for a very mediocre quality study piano. The American threatened to cancel the concert, but then changed his mind.

The result was an hour of amazing improvisations, above all, in which Jarrett was both a researcher, a craftsman, a technician, a poet, and indelibly printed to his most groove touch that he can imagine, drawing Riffs They have remained in everyone’s memory since then. Miraculously, the concert was recorded, and the album became one of the few piano albums best-selling in history. The myth was born,Keith Jarrett.

In 1977, Keith Jarrett inaugurated a new trio with Jack Dejahnette and Gary Peacock with the album Tales of Another. Together, the newly formed group produced albums that are among the jazz monuments ( Changels , Tokyo ’96 , After the Fall ). It was also during this period when Jarrett entered the classic sphere by the door of improvisation, especially to the clavichord, a usual practice in the Baroque time. Keith Jarrett performed great concerts of the Bach, Haendel and Mozart ​music.

The 1990s were more painful and less prolific, and the pianist had to deal with chronic fatigue syndrome. From 2000 to the end of his career, Jarrett concentrated on the piano trio activity alone. Fortunately, there are still many unpublished recordings of the pianist, including this pearl dedicated to Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach , which has just published ECM , a complete set of the Würtrangemberg WQ 49 sonatas .

Composed between 1742 and 1744, the Württemberg Sonatas , which bear the name of their dedication, represent a link between the late baroque and the empifindsamkeit (sensitivity, feeling), artistic movement before the so -called classic period and characterized by their attention to the contrasts of Time, melodies and timbral variations. Sentably influenced by the legacy of Bach ‘s father , whom Carl Philipp Emmanuel dedicated an unlimited admiration, these sonatas mark an elegant inflection in CPE Bach’s work to the extent that the desire to combine emotional expressiveness with the rigor with the rigor is manifested Mathematician of counterpoint writing.

This duality is particularly evident among the different movements, as can be seen in Sonata No. 1 in the smallest H.30 : the first two movements, moderate and Andate , are broad and fluids, followed by an allegro Assai with a much more square metric.

ECM offers us the unpayable gift from these Sonatas in a until now unpublished version, recorded by Keith Jarrett in Cavelight Studio (New Jersey) in May 1994.

Since the American pianist was forced to retire in advance, each of his new releases has left us a bittersweet taste. As in this album, where the elegiac mixes with the triumphant. Far from the characteristic sounds of the jumping and elastic touch that has become the inimitable brand of Köln Concert ‘s father , this production, with a perfectly edited recording, offers the listener the joy of a piano of an unprecedented roundness. ‘s touch Jarrett is bright, attacks go direct to the heart thanks to a subtle understanding of the harmonies game. Jarrett is known for his scratch, unpredictable and rebel phrase. It is equally brilliant in its containment and economy, and here it gives us an album of amazing beauty.