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Article Excerpt
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Probestucke, Leichte and Damen Sonatas. Edited by David Schulenberg. (The Complete Works, ser. I: Keyboard Music, vol. 3.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2005. [Gen. pref., p. ix-x; pref., p. xi-xii; introd., p. xiii-xxi; 12 plates; score, 149 p.; abbrevs., p. 151-52; crit. report, p. 153-90. ISBN 1-933280-01-8. Cloth. $25.]
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Miscellaneous Keyboard Works, I. Edited by Peter Wollny. (The Complete Works, ser. I: Keyboard Music, vol. 8.1.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2006. [Gen. pref., p. ix-x; pref., p. xi-xii; introd., p. xiii-xx; 6 plates; score, 111 p.; abbrevs., p. 113-14; crit. report, p. 115-36; appendix, p. 137-48; concordances, p. 149-50. ISBN 1-933280-03-4. Cloth. $20.] Contains: Clavierstucke verschiedener Art, Wq 112; Kurze und leichte Clavierstucke, Wq 113-14; Fantasias.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Miscellaneous Keyboard Works, II. Edited by-Peter Wollny. (The Complete Works, ser. I: Keyboard Music, vol. 8.2.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2005. [Gen. pref., p. ix--x; pref., p. xi-xii; introd., p. xiii--xxvi; 10 plates; score, 143 p.; abbrevs., p. 145-47; crit. report, p. 149-216. ISBN 1-933280-04-2. Cloth. $25.] Contains: Petites pieces pour le clavecin; Solfeggios; Minuets and polonaises; Sechs leichte kleine Clavierstucke and related pieces; Vier kleine Duetten fur zwei Claviere, Wq 115; Suites; Juvenilia.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Six Symphonies for Baron van Swieten, [Wq 182]. Edited by Sarah Adams. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 2.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2006. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref., p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xv; 7 plates; score, 85 p.; abbrevs., p. 87-88; crit. report, p. 89-100. ISBN 1-933280-05-0. Cloth. $20.]
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Orchester-Sinfonien mit zwolf obligaten Stimmen, [Wq 183]. Edited by David Kidger. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 3.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2005. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref., p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xviii; 5 plates; score, 111 p.; abbrevs., p. 113-14; crit. report, p. 115-24. ISBN 1-933280-00-X. Cloth. $20.]
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Oboe Concertos. Edited by Janet K. Page. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 5.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2006. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref. ("Concertos," Peter Wollny), p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xv; 15 plates; score, 71 p.; abbrevs., p. 73-74; crit. report, p. 75-82; appendix, p. 83-85. ISBN 1-933280-17-4. Cloth. $20.] Contains: Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq 164; Concerto in E-Flat Major, Wq 165.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Prints. Edited by Elias N. Kulukundis. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 7.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2007. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref. ("Concertos," Peter Wollny), p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xv; 8 plates; score, 147 p.; abbrevs., p. 149-50; crit. report, p. 151-75; appendix, p. 177-87. ISBN 1-933280-14-X. Cloth. $20.] Contains: Concerto in D Major, Wq 11; Concerto in E Major, Wq 14; Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq 25.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Sei concerti per il cembalo concertato, [Wq 43]. Edited by Douglas A. Lee. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 8.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2005. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref., p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xvi; 7 plates; score, 301 p.; abbrevs., p. 303-4; crit. report, p. 305-12. ISBN 0-933280-02-6 (invalid), 1-933280-02-6 (corrected). Cloth. $30.]
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Manuscript Sources, XIII. Edited by Arnfried Edler. (The Complete Works, ser. III: Orchestral Music, vol. 9.13.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2007. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref. ("Concertos," Peter Wollny), p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xiii; 55 plates; score, 87 p.; abbrevs., p. 89; crit. report, p. 91-96; appendix, p. 97-[99]. ISBN 1-933280-20-2. Cloth. $20.] Contains: Concerto in B-Flat Major, Wq 39; Concerto in E-Flat Major, Wq 40.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Works for Special Occasions, I. Edited by Ulrich Leisinger. (The Complete Works, ser. V: Choral Music, vol. 5.1.) Los Altos, CA: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2006. [Gen. pref., p. vii-viii; pref., p. ix-x; introd., p. xi-xv; libretto, p. xvii-xx; 9 plates; score, 122 p.; abbrevs., p. 123-24; crit. report, p. 125-43. ISBN 1-933280-06-9. Cloth. $20.] Contains: Dank-Hymne der Freundschaft, H 824e.
While monuments often take a long time in their construction, this complete edition of the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, which bears evidence of monumental planning and labor even in the ten volumes under review, is to be finished in remarkably quick time. The tercentenary in 2014 of the composer's birth is to see the completion of this project. No complete editions of C. P. E. Bach exist to this point, and only one has previously been attempted: Oxford University Press's Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Edition, undertaken between 1982 and 1995, of which only four volumes were ever published. The big story since that time, and what has made the current task feasible, is the rediscovery in Kiev in 1999 of the archives of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. These opened up the world of Bach's vocal music, providing many unique copies of the passions and cantatas written during the composer's tenure as director of sacred music for the city of Hamburg from 1768 until his death in 1788. This means a complete edition that now has access to almost everything the composer is on record as having written, based on the catalog of his estate--the Nachla[beta]-Verzeichnis (NV) of 1790-and the later catalogs of Alfred Wotquenne (1905) and Eugene Helm (1989). In some respects the editor of Bach has a good time of it, in that the composer clearly took great pains over his autographs, the parts compiled under his supervision, and, where it was possible, the publication of his music. On the other hand, particularly in the case of his solo keyboard music, a great many copies (both print and manuscript) circulated beyond this realm of direct influence, and the task of the current editor includes trying to gain some control over a very large number of sources.
A more global difficulty relates to the fact that Bach was a great reviser and arranger of his own works. The scale of Bach's extant revisions, together with the fact that he often revived his older works in performance, marks him out as unusual for his time. The operating principle for this edition is that it "considers the latest known authorized version of a work to be the principal one" (p. vii or ix in the general preface of each volume), though many of the volumes being considered here inevitably complicate this picture. And in cases where the revisions are thought substantial enough, the "new" piece is simply reproduced in full. More typical, if still not entirely so in its extent, is that Bach reused and arranged a good deal of his music. Apart from the frequent problems involved in trying to re-create a sequence of events around such arrangements, this also raises difficulties of classification for the edition as a...
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