| Abstract |
J. S. Bach's second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788), is not usually thought of as a composer of songs. Most music historians have concentrated their attention on his instrumental works, specifically arguing that the forms of those works represent a sort of middle term or "missing link" between the binary forms of Baroque music and ternary Classical sonata form. Moreover, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, the late-eighteen-century composers who have, quite rightly, claimed the lion's share of scholarly attention, did not write many songs. Therefore, music historians have tended to begin the history of the German lied with Schubert and to ignore the lied that flourished in north and central Germany during the last two-thirds of the eighteenth century, with C.P.E. Bach as its most distinguished artificer. C. P.E. Bach wrote close to three hundred songs, almost all of which were published in his lifetime. He was an extremely adventurous composer - works range from simple chorales and ordinary strophic songs, through modified strophic and through-composed songs, to long, cantata-like pieces of several hundred bars. This extraordinarily rich body of music is only now beginning to be recorded and thus to become known to singers, this book presents a wealth of material on the composer and his songs. |
