Tercentenary Emanuel Bach

Abstract

Studies of C. P. E. Bach have entered a new phase recently, partly fuelled by the discovery of new sources transforming the state of his work-list. David Schulenberg’s magisterial study of the complete oeuvre, published in the composer’s tercentenary year, is thus in more ways than one a timely contribution to the literature on this important figure. In an earlier phase, Hans-Günter Ottenberg’s Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (original German edition 1982; translated by Philip J. Whitmore, 1987) helped to set in motion the process of making this previously somewhat elusive composer and his work more accessible. In the intervening years a host of scholarly studies and editions have helped raise the composer’s profile, together with a noticeable increase in concert performances and recordings. Schulenberg’s book represents the fruits of long acquaintance with the composer and his work, expanding the territory covered by his earlier study of C. P. E. Bach’s instrumental music (Ann Arbor, 1984) to take in the vocal music alongside; it also proves to be in fact (if not in name) a life-and-works study, despite the author’s prefatory disclaimer (p.x). The arrangement of chapters is an outward sign of this, with the chapter titles predominantly conveying the composer’s life stages. (I wondered if attaching date-spans to these titles or providing a separate timeline of the life might have been additionally helpful.) With regard to the music, the author’s record of published scholarship on Johann Sebastian Bach and on Emanuel Bach’s older brother Wilhelm Friedemann puts him in what is possibly a uniquely strong position from which to consider Emanuel’s achievements in the context of the Bach family, while his keyboard expertise (in chamber as well as solo performance) illuminates his commentary on specific works, and on performance practice issues generally.