Manuel Granatiero presents his first solo album, following several successful recordings with Amandine Beyer's Gli Incogniti and Accademia Ottoboni, of which he is a founding member. Here, Manuel is joined by Yu Yashima and Marco Ceccato, as he turns his attention to the flute music of C.P.E. Bach. The outcome of this project is Light and Darkness, five sonatas chosen from the substantial oeuvre that the composer dedicated to this instrument. In addition to the famous sonata for solo flute, the program includes two sonatas with harpsichord obbligato and two sonatas with basso continuo. Demonstrating a wealth of stylistic and writing variety, they represent the entirety of the period in which Bach composed his surviving flute sonatas: BWV1020 written in his youth at his father's house in Leipzig, Wq124 written during his early years of study in Frankfurt, Wq128 and Wq132 during his service at the court of Frederick II, and Wq83 during his mature years in Hamburg. This is therefore a miniature exploration of the universe of the 'Berlin Bach' through some of his most intimate works that encourage us to experience the most diverse human emotions, from the darkest to the brightest ones.

As early as his Piano Concerto in A minor, Wq1, which he composed in Leipzig at the age of 19, it was hard for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to conceal his ability to weave his own stylistic flair into the still nascent genre of the piano concerto. This can be seen not only pianistically in unconventional technical demands (leaps of up to two octaves combined with melodic writing, elaborate embellishments and other features typical of instrumental works) but also in unexpected extensions of the formal layout and at times abruptly harsh passages. Starting with Wq1, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach proved the tremendous potential for development and transformation of this genre. The concertos would occupy him all his life and constantly take him along new pathways. Thus, in the course of 55 years a cosmos emerged which only our generation has been given the opportunity to discover.

With these sonatas by C.P.E. Bach, François Lazarevitch continues the exploration of the jewels of the flute and recorder repertory he has embarked on with Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien or as a soloist with recordings of music by Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi, and van Eyck. François Lazarevitch and Justin Taylor now bring their sensitivity and virtuosity to bear on the sonatas for flute and obbligato harpsichord of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach.

The majority of these works date from the years 1745-66, when he was in the service of the flute-playing King Frederick II. Two solos complete the program: the famous Sonata in A minor for unaccompanied flute and the Fantasia in F# minor for keyboard, which testifies to Emanuel’s improvisational artistry.

Situated at the epicenter of the Enlightenment era, Bach’s second son was the key figure of Empfindsamkeit (Sensibility), the movement that explored the deep and unfathomable stirrings of humanity and nature, countering the learned style of the early eighteenth-century masters with freedom of inspiration and hence emancipation of form. The artist now sought above all to express the impulses of the soul, displaying unexpected traits that sometimes verge on the bizarre.