The birthday of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) will have its 300th anniversary this year. His works are among the most important of the flute repertoire at all. Among his contemporaries, he was highly regarded. During the 19th century, however, his reputation was pushed back by his own father, when suddenly the musical world was interested only in the works by Johann Sebastian Bach.
C.P.E. Bach was born on March 8, 1714, the second son of the great musician J.S. Bach, in Weimar. From 1723 the family lived in Leipzig, where his father had become music director and choirmaster. C.P.E. Bach joined the Thomas School and was trained by his father as organist. He then studied law at Leipzig University. In 1734 he went to Frankfurt on the Oder, where he continued his studies. In 1738 he was hired by Frederick the Great as a harpsichordist. Two years later Frederick II appointed him a member of the newly established Berlin court orchestra. Here he worked for almost 30 years until 1767. Then he was at the age of 53 years music director of the City of Hamburg, one of the most important posts for conductors at that time. He died on December 14, 1788
In the 1920s, the flutist Ary van Leeuwen discovered some flute works from the pen of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach for himself and edited them with Musikverlag Zimmermann. But, it was especially Kurt Walther, who published many of his flute works with Zimmermann – some of them for the first time – later followed by the flutist Werner Richter with other editions.