Phil and Paul discuss some of the composers and their works who were key to this important period of classical music programme, highlighting works by Rameau, Sammartini, CPE Bach and a work written by Tchaikovsky in the Rococo style.

Roughly landing in the decades between the 1740s -1770s Rococo music took root in France and spread throughout Europe rapidly, to the delight of a growing class of amateur musicians and aficionados.

Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, two sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, were at the forefront of this stylistic revolution against the density and complexity of the Baroque period composing style in Germany.

In France Rococo music (or Style Galant as it was known) was championed by Jean Philippe Rameau, Louis-Claude Daquin and François Couperin while in Italy the music of composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini was Rococo personified.

Jean-Philippe Rameau
Les Indes Galantes – Air vif
Jordi Savall (Conductor)
Le Concert Des Nations

Giovanni Battista Sammartini
Recorder Concerto in F Major: III. Allegro assai
Maurice Steger Ensemble
Maurice Steger (Recorder)

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Magnificat (Chorus)
Dresden Chamber Choir
Gotthold Schwarz (Conductor)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33
Variation VIII and Coda
Stephen Isserlis (Cello)
Irish Chamber Orchestra
John Eliot Gardner (Conductor)