C. P. E. Bach: Cello Concertos Elinor Frey & Accademia de Dissonanti

• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714 - 1788): Cello Concerto in A Minor, Wq. 170:
• 1 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Minor, Wq. 170: I. Allegro assai 11:17
• 2 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Minor, Wq. 170: II. Andante 08:35
• 3 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Minor, Wq. 170: III. Allegro assai 07:09
• Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq. 171:
• 4 Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq. 171: I. Allegretto 08:05
• 5 Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq. 171: II. Adagio 07:26
• 6 Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq. 171: III. Allegro assai 06:25
• Cello Concerto in A Major, Wq. 172:
• 7 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Major, Wq. 172: I. Allegro 06:28
• 8 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Major, Wq. 172: I. Largo con sordini, Mesto 07:00
• 9 Bach: Cello Concerto in A Major, Wq. 172: III. Allegro assai 05:10
• Total Runtime 01:07:35

Info for C. P. E. Bach: Cello Concertos

The Canadian-American cellist Elinor Frey performs and conducts Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s three cello concertos with the Accademia de’ Dissonanti. These dramatic works, rich in turbulent exchanges yet also in tender moments, bear witness to C. P. E. Bach’s fiery imagination, where emotion and melody take precedence. In Bach’s time, personalising a performance was both common and expected. The question of ‘how a cellist premiering these works would have approached these concertos’ lies at the heart of this recording. Drawing on a vocabulary of ornamentation and melodic analysis derived from the music of the composer and his contemporaries, Frey has reconstructed the social milieu and instrumental practice of Bach’s time, in order to approach the way in which this music was once heard and felt.

Elinor Frey, cello & direction
Accademia de' Dissonanti

Elinor Frey
Born in Seattle and living in Montréal, Elinor Frey is a leading Canadian-American cellist, viola da gambist, and researcher. Her albums on Passacaille Records, Channel Classics, and Analekta – many of which are world premiere recordings – include Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco Cello Sonatas, recipient of a Diapason d’Or, and Early Italian Cello Concertos, winner of the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year (small ensemble). Her critical editions of Dall’Abaco’s cello music are published in collaboration with Walhall Editions.

Elinor is the artistic director of Accademia de’ Dissonanti, an organization for performance and research. She has performed as a soloist throughout the Americas and in Europe in recital and with numerous chamber ensembles and orchestras including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, London Symphonia (ON), Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Asheville Symphony, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Rosa Barocca, Il Gardellino, and Pacific Baroque Orchestra, among others.

Recipient of dozens of grants and prizes supporting performance and research, including the US-Italy Fulbright Fellowship, Elinor benefited from a research residency at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, and a collaborative research project in 2025 with musicologist Nicholas Baragwanath, working on using hexachordal solfeggio in practice. Elinor holds degrees from McGill, Mannes, and Juilliard. She teaches Baroque cello and performance practice at McGill University and the Université de Montréal and was a Visiting Fellow in Music (2020–2023) at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. Frey was awarded Québec’s Opus Prize for “Performer of the Year” in 2021 and “Influence Abroad” in 2026.

Booklet for C. P. E. Bach: Cello Concertos