C.P.E. Bach Studies

C. P. E. Bach Studies collects together nine wide-ranging essays by leading scholars of eighteenth-century music. Offering fresh perspectives on one of the towering figures of the period, the authors explore Bach's music in its cultural contexts, and show in diverse and complementary ways the reciprocal relationship between Bach's work and contemporary literary, theological, and aesthetic debates. Topics include Bach's relation to theories of sensibility and the sublime; the free fantasy and concepts of self and being; and Bach's engagement with music history and the legacy of his predecessors. Wider questions of C. P. E. Bach reception also play an important part in the book, which explores not only the interpretation of Bach's music in his time, but also its reception over the two centuries since his death.

Introduction; 1. Diderot's Paradoxe and C. P. E. Bach's Empfindungen Richard Kramer; 2. Dark fantasies and the dawn of the self: Gerstenberg's monologues for C. P. E. Bach's C Minor Fantasia Tobias Plebuch; 3. Sources of C. P. E. Bach's solo keyboard works in the Sing-Akademie archives Darrell M. Berg; 4. Reason and revelation in C. P. E. Bach's Resurrection Oratorio Richard Will; 5. C. P. E. Bach and C. C. Sturm: sacred song, public church service, and private devotion Ulrich Leisinger; 6. An enduring moment: C. P. E. Bach and the musical sublime Annette Richards; 7. C. P. E. Bach and the living traditions of learned counterpoint David Yearsley; 8. Plates for sale: C. P. E. Bach and the story of Die Kunst der Fuge David Ferris; 10. 'Our old great favourite': Burney, Bach and the Bachists Christopher Hogwood.

Includes essays on Bach's position on sensibility; sacred music and views on religion; and on the contemporary and posthumous reception of his music. As the first English-language collection devoted to C. P. E. Bach since 1988, it seeks to re-establish the centrality of Bach's music in eighteenth-century German culture.