Fantasia (CD)

Magdalena Hoffmann presents Fantasia – an album of music for harp by Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons.

MORE INFORMATION

For her second DG recording, Fantasia, Magdalena Hoffmann travels back in time to focus on the music of the Baroque period. Here she showcases her instrument in a selection of fantasias and preludes originally written for keyboard or lute by Johann Sebastian Bach, his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, and his contemporaries Handel and Weiss.

By the 18th century, the term “fantasia”, in use since the Renaissance, indicated a piece of instrumental music characterised by a combination of stylistic invention and structural discipline. As Magdalena Hoffmann points out, “Improvisatory freedom and formal rigour come together to create a living, breathing entity – these contrasts make for fertile ground when it comes to musical creation.” Her chosen composers may not have been writing for the harp, but whether labelled fantasias, preludes, overtures, airs or allegros, their works in this genre are perfectly suited to the instrument. “The harp has what you might almost call a home advantage,” she says, “thanks to its natural potential for the kind of free, ornamental arpeggiation so typical of Baroque preludes and fantasias.”

Magdalena Hoffmann channels the Baroque spirit of improvisation on Fantasia, using the resonance and versatility of the harp to add new dynamic and spatial dimensions to this richly imaginative repertoire. “The harp offers the possibility of great inner tension and a kind of spiritual dynamic which has a liberating effect,” she notes. “And that means each fantasia is like a musical snapshot that sounds different every time you play it – its energy is infinite, and it can never be definitively captured.”

TRACK LIST

C.P.E. BACH: 
Fantasia in E flat major Wq deest (H 348)
Fantasia in D major Wq 117:14 (H 160)
Fantasia in F sharp minor “C. P. E. Bachs Empfindungen” Wq 67 (H 300)

W.F. BACH: 
Prelude in C minor F 29
Fantasia in A minor F 23
Fantasia in D minor F 19

WEISS: 
Prelude in C minor
Fantasia in C minor WSW 9

J.S. BACH: 
Prelude (Fantasia) in C minor BWV 921
Fantasia in G minor (Fantasia duobus subjectis) BWV 917 
Sinfonia (Fantasia) No. 11 in G minor BWV 797

HANDEL:
Prelude & Allegro in A minor HWV 576
Overture from Suite in G minor HWV 453:1
Prelude from Partita in C minor HWV 444:1
Air in G minor HWV 467
Prelude in D minor HWV 562

ARTISTS
Magdalena Hoffmann, harp