Ewald Demeyere - CPE Bach, Mozart: Keyboard Variations

Ewald Demeyere performs Keyboard Variations by CPE Bach and Mozart on the harpsichord in what is an inquiring and original project. Demeyere shows us the two profoundly different styles from the composers in works dating from the same years.

Ewald Demeyere: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) are not composers whose works are regularlyincluded in the same concert or recording program. One reason for this is probably of a stylistic nature: Bach wrote in the empfindsame Stil and in theSturm und Drang style, while Mozart used a language that today is described as classical. For me, however, it is precisely this stylistic differencebetween the two composers, whose four works on this album were written between 1777 and 1782, that makes such a musical encounter sofascinating. Another reason why compositions by Bach and Mozart are not often programmed together seems to have to do with the choice ofinstrument. Today, in the context of historically informed performances, Bach's solo keyboard repertoire is mainly played on the clavichord and that ofMozart on the fortepiano. Both men, however, also played the harpsichord frequently, a fact which I found so interesting as to choose precisely thatkeyboard instrument for this recording in works that I believe are just as convincing on that instrument as they are on their respective instrument ofreference.