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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's great achievement lies in the fact that he was heir to an immense
composer of the Baroque era, and in turn he inspired many composers, right up to the Romantic
period.
This sinfonia is typical of his language in that it embodies the ideals of the artistic
movement known as 'Empfindsamkeit'.
'Empfindsamkeit' means, literally, 'sensibility'. It was a means whereby artists — philosophers,
as well as composers and writers, poets ¬— brought out feeling, brought out the affects, the
human passions, the relationship between man and nature, and his taste for freedom.
The very short movements are linked together, with sudden changes of tone, dynamics and
also character that are very surprising and very abrupt. There's no transition. Everything
is very sharp, clear-cut.
The nucleus of Pulcinella for Carl Philipp is the continuo:
with Francesco Corti, fortepiano, and the two solo violins, Thibault Noally
and Nicolas Mazzoleni, and the violist Patricia Gagnon, with whom
I've worked for years.
The idea is for the ensemble to work 'by capillarity', i.e. there's no vertical direction.
The orchestra is a 'research laboratory'; its members interact, guided by the continuo.
We are in a sound laboratory, with the strings and the pianoforte, that enables every dynamic,
that enables us to be extremely tender, sad or melancholy,
then in a split-second be moved to great anger.
Carl Philipp said: If you want to move the listener you must feel the emotion yourself.
Indeed, the interpreter reflects the emotions; we absorb them, and the effect on the orchestra
and the sounds produced is fantastic.