C.P.E. Bach and the Rebirth of the Strophic Song brings to light the overlooked fact that C.P.E. Bach wrote a great many songs, most of which are as under appreciated as they are exemplary. All interested listeners, from amateurs to professional musicologists and singers, will benefit from the insight captured by this book.

Of the four sons of J.S. Bach who became composers, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-88) was the most prolific, the most original, and the most influential both during and after his lifetime. This first full-length English-language study critically surveys his output, examining not only the famous keyboard sonatas and concertos but also the songs, chamber music, and sacred works, many of which resurfaced in 1999 and have not previously been evaluated. The bookalso outlines the composer's career from his student days at Leipzig and Frankfurt (Oder) to his nearly three decades as court musician to Prussian King Frederick "the Great" and his last twenty years as cantor at Hamburg. Focusing on the composer's choices within his social and historical context, the book shows how C.P.E. Bach deliberately avoided his father's style while adopting the manner of his Berlin colleagues, derived from Italian opera. Anew perspective on the composer emerges from the demonstration that C.P.E. Bach, best known for his virtuoso keyboard works, refashioned himself as a writer of vocal music and popular chamber compositions in response to changingcultural and aesthetic trends. Supplementary texts and musical examples are included on a companion website. David Schulenberg is professor of music at Wagner College and teaches historical performance at the JuilliardSchool. He is the author of The Music of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (University of Rochester Press, 2010).

The second son of Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E. Bach was an important composer in his own right, as well as a writer and performer on keyboard instruments. He composed roughly a thousand works in all the leading genres of the period, with the exception of opera, and Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all acknowledged his influence. He was also the author of a two-volume encyclopedic book about performance on keyboard instrument. C.P.E. Bach and his music have always been the subject of significant scholarship and publication but interest has sharply increased over the past two or three decades from performers as well as music historians. This volume incorporates important writings not only on the composer and his chief works but also on theoretical issues and performance questions. The focus throughout is on relatively recent scholarship otherwise available only in hard-to-access sources.

A collection of the latest work by distinguished scholars on C. P. E. Bach.

Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Preliminaries -- 1. The Chromatic Moment in Enlightenment Thought -- Moments Musicaux -- 2. The Fugal Moment: On a Few Bars in Mozart's Quintet in C Major, K. 515 -- 3. Hearing the Silence: On a Much-Theorized Moment in a Sonata by Emanuel Bach -- The Klopstock Moment -- 4. Oden von Klopstock in Musik gesetzt ... -- 5. Composing Klopstock: Gluck contra Bach -- 6. Beethoven: In Search of Klopstock -- Dramma per Musica -- 7. Anagnorisis: Gluck and the Theater of Recognition -- 8. Cherubino's Leap -- 9. Konstanze's Tears -- Works Cited -- Index

Bach has remained a figure of continuous fascination and interest to scholars and readers since the original Master Musicians Bach volume's publication in 1983 - even since its revision in 2000, understanding of Bach and his music's historical and cultural context has shifted substantially. Reflecting new biographical information that has only emerged in recent decades, author David Schulenberg contributes to an ongoing scholarly conversation about Bach with clarity and concision. Bach traces the man's emergence as a startlingly original organist and composer, describing his creative evolution, professional career, and family life from contemporary societal and cultural perspectives in early modern Europe. His experiences as student, music director, and teacher are examined alongside the music he produced in each of these roles, including early compositions for keyboard instruments, the great organ and harpsichord works of later years, vocal music, and other famous instrumental works, including the Brandenburg Concertos. Schulenberg also illuminates how Bach incorporated his contemporary environment into his work: he responded to music by other composers, to his audiences and employment conditions, and to developments in poetry, theology, and even the sciences. The author focuses on Bach's evolution as a composer by ultimately recognizing "Bach's world" in the specific cities, courts, and environments within and for which he composed. Dispensing with biographical minutiae and more closely examining the interplay between his life and his music, Bach presents a unique, grounded, and refreshing new framing of a brilliant composer.