Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

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Created on: 11 Oct 2009
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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a German musician and composer, 2nd of five sons of Johann Sebastian Bach and a crucial composer in the transition between the Baroque and Classical periods.

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King Frederick the Great on the Flute performing with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach on the Harpsichord and František Benda on the Violin.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach quote: A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humour will stimulate a like humour in the listener.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788) was a German musician and composer, the second of five sons of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. He was a crucial composer in the transition between the Baroque and Classical periods, and one of the founders of the Classical style, composing in the Rococo and Classical periods.
His compositions include about thirty sonatas and concert pieces for harpsichord and clavichord. He wrote a fine setting of the Magnificat, in which he shows more traces than usual of his father's influence; an Easter cantata; several symphonies and concerted works; at least three volumes of songs; and a few secular cantatas and other occasional pieces. But his main work was concentrated on the clavier, for which he composed, at this time, nearly two hundred sonatas and other solos.
Through the latter half of the 18th century, the reputation of C.P.E. Bach stood very high. This position he owes mainly to his keyboard sonatas, which mark an important epoch in the history of musical form. Lucid in style, delicate and tender in expression, they are even more notable for the freedom and variety of their structural design; they break away altogether from both the Italian and the Viennese schools, moving instead toward the cyclical and improvisatory forms that would become common several generations later.

The content of his work is full of invention and, most importantly, extreme unpredictability, and wide emotional range even within a single work, a style that may be categorised as Empfindsamer Stil. It is no less sincere in thought than polished and felicitous in phrase. He was probably the first composer of eminence who made free use of harmonic colour for its own sake since the time of Lassus, Monteverdi, and Gesualdo. In this way, he compares well with the most important representatives of the First Viennese School, and in fact he exerted enormous influence on the North German School of composers. His influence was not limited to his contemporaries, and extended to Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Maria von Weber. Considered by many to be the foremost composer of the `Empfindsamer Stil`,often stating that `Music should come from the Heart`. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Philipp_Emanuel_Bach

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Temeryire commented on
“Favorite works by C.P.E. Bach!” (3) July 2010

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