Talk:Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Untitled
I moved this here from Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach - the spelling with a C has virtually completely superceded the K spelling (both in English and German speaking countries). The article is a complete mess, by the way - I might clean it up later (but these 1911 articles are rather depressing...) --Camembert

A quick note on the children of Johann Sebastian Bach. He had 20 children total, 10 of whom survived into adulthood. He had 7 children with Maria Barbara and 13 children with Anna Magdalena. Nine of these children were female, and 11 male. I have changed the first line to say "the second of five sons of Sebastian and Maria Barbara", though "second of Sebastian's 11 sons would also be correct, or some variant like that. These number are from Table 11.1 in Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York: Norton, 2000): 396-8. --Tagith 03:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

There should be mention of CPEB's symphonies, which influenced Haydn's, as mentioned in the article on the latter -- Rothorpe 00.21, 1 January 2007 GMT

Don't attempt to clean it up until you have learnt to spell. For instance 'supersede' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.198.64.54 (talk) 11:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Solfeggietto
Does CPE have a list of works or a category yet? Something should point to Solfeggietto. DavidRF 04:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Works List
Should the works list that was recently added by Fbourgeois be moved to its own page, perhaps? At the very least, we could consider a table of some sort, giving cross-references between the Helm and Wotquenne numbers... food for though. --EvanCortens (talk) 15:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC) Bach was born in 1223 and died as soon as he was born! Love Preya Budhram! Not a Lie I n=know Bach he was my uncle isn't that awsome!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.138.139.183 (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Start class assessment
The content of this article is almost good enough to be a B-class article. Unfortunately, due to its relatively unsourced nature, and the wonderful (<-- sarcasm!) EB1911 writing, it will probably have to be rewritten.

The works list should definitely be in a separate article.

--  Magic ♪piano 13:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

CPE Bach's Use of Harmonic Color
"He was probably the first composer of eminence who made free use of harmonic colour for its own sake since the time of Lassus, Monteverdi, and Gesualdo."

This is followed by the tag "Citation Needed," but you will never find an authoritative citation for such a bold claim. It beaspeaks ignorance of the French manner and composers such as Couperin and Rameau, not to mention some works of Bach's father. C.P.E. Bach's work in harmonic independence was important and very different from most other composers of his generation, but there is plenty of "free use of harmonic colour for its own sake" in between him and Monteverdi.

It might not hurt to mention something about C.P.E.'s influence on sturm und drang, his advocacy of "expressive style" (a term he coined) and his connection with literary figures of the time such as Klopstock.Pinikadia (talk) 13:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)Pinikadia


 * This statement, along with the rest of the paragraph, were all taken from the online 1911 Britannica article w/o any footnote - also, it is copied verbatim. This should be paraphrased at the very least. HammerFilmFan (talk) 07:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

relationship with father, mother and step-mother should be mentioned
These three people would have had a large impact on his life. Additionally something should be said about his relationship with dad's 2nd wife after he died - the sons of wife #1 were a bit uncaring to the mother of JC Bach. HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:13, 28 March 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen
This is the same thing as An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, so it is mentioned twice in the article in separate contexts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.4.7.249 (talk) 02:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Use of thumbs when playing keyboard instruments
The article until very recently said CPE had introduced this, and source Dammann says so, but Fingering (music) under Keyboard instruments says actually JS Bach had done it. Marlindale (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Emanuel?
Why are we referring to him as "Emanuel Bach"? He is certainly not known as that today. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  06:17, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Not known as that by anyone? What about in the source repeated five times in the Notes section? — Eru·tuon 17:16, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

...and his father referred to as Sebastian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.198.64.54 (talk) 11:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Frivolous removal av encyclopedic content
Content in the form of audio files, which is really the only way to convey what a composer is all about. Composer pages on Wikipedia should have more in the way of musical examples, not less.

Recently almost all sound files were removed from this page, with the edit summmary complaining that they were somehow "excessive". (How, and why?) This even included the removal of Solfeggietto, one of the most famous and characteristic examples.

I will acknowledge that the presentation of the clips was less than optimal, and in adding them back I have made sure they are in the listen-box format they should be. Also removed were a MIDI rendition of a piece and a link to a youtube-clip, both of which I agree were rightly removed.

Please do not remove illustrative encyclopedic content without better justification than one persons opinion of "excessive". kim 00:50, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Solfeggietto be merged into this article. The article on Solfeggietto is very short and could easily have its content moved here. I think it could be put in Legacy and musical style -- it is debatably his most well known work, and a paragraph here wouldn't hurt. Eman 235 / talk 07:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. We've usually been keeping articles about works separate from articles about composers. The Solfeggietto article is currently pretty crummy but the solution is to improve it, I think. Merging will only hurt the C.P.E. Bach article.  Opus33 (talk) 02:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. WP:UNDUE for CPE Bach article. Or delete it altogether - I see no evidence for it being notable.--Smerus (talk) 07:23, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a comment about deletion, I vaguely sense that the Solfeggietto is (or used to be) a warhorse of piano lessons, like the Bach minuets for Anna Magdalena or the Mozart C major sonata. Perhaps some of the people who end up playing the piece in this context wouldn't mind learning more about it. Opus33 (talk) 16:54, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Update: I did some cleanup on the Solfeggietto article, adding reference sources.
 * Oppose: articles on compositions should stay separate, I plan one more, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Beethoven's admiration
There is currently a "citation needed" about this. A quotation attributed to Beethoven says "not Brook but Ocean should be his name," `Bach' being the German word for brook. I have seen this quoted as if it were about JSB, but it seems possible to me that it was about CPEB. It has been said that not only in the second half of the 18th century (as already in the article) but also in the early 19th, CPEB was better known than his father. It will take work to pin down details. Marlindale (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I now have seen it said hat Beethoven made the "Not Brook but Ocean" comment in 1822. By then, I believe Beethoven was aware of JSB's music and was speaking of him. At an earlier time, Beethoven had shown admiration for CPEB. Marlindale (talk) 03:43, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

The aource I found, Guy Dammann (not for Brook however), according to The Telegraph for which he writes, is also music critic of the Times Literary Supplement and teaches at the Guildhall School of Music. Marlindale (talk) 20:55, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello Marlindale. I'd like to clear the thing up a bit: the "ocean" quote does refer to JSB, and not to CPEB. First of all, there's the primary source, which is Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg, who reported hearing the words from Beethoven, and published the quote in his book Erinnerungen aus dem Leben eines alten Organisten in 1870. You can now look it up. The complete quote mentions Bach as the ideal organist, by the way. Also, Beethoven knew JSB's work already by the early 1780s, because his teacher Neefe supplied him a copy of The Well-Tempered Clavier – there exists a rather well-known mention of that, in the earliest known published reference to Beethoven, in Magazin der Musik dated 2 March 1783. You can look the exact quote up in New Grove, and in other places. (As for admiration for CPEB there can be no doubt either, and you can find mentions of that as well. By the way, it was Neefe too, who let Beethoven study a copy of Gellert Oden, which is one of CPEB's masterworks.) --Jashiin (talk) 17:16, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Jashin. Marlindale (talk) 18:00, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if it's possible to find citations supporting the strong statements made, but instead one might strengthen some previous statements to what Dammann says, so I will. Marlindale (talk) 00:27, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

K.P.E. Bach
Where is the Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach coming from? Looks like one of those desperate attempts of Imperial German orthography to artificially Germanize the spelling of given names? Does that need to be so prominent in the first sentence? --109.45.3.138 (talk) 01:04, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The footnote says "formerly called" KPE and is to Encyc. Brit. 1878. Maybe it's relevant that the German Empire had just been formed in 1870. Anyhow CPE is used, for example, in Spitta's biography of JSB, 1889 translation, In other eras, of course, "Karl" is quite common, e.g. Karl Jaspers. Marlindale (talk) 02:03, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Period - classification?
The Lead says he was in a time of transition between his father's Baroque style and later classical styles. It seems to me better not to make a choice between the two classifications. Marlindale (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC) Marlindale (talk) 20:08, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Years of Works
The samples are wonderful, thanks! I'd like to ask that the year of composition be included if anybody by chance knows the date or date range. Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1315:42BC:8005:5CAF:8C5F:84A7 (talk) 04:34, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

External links cleanup
these links were deleted:

Gor1995 &#119070; 15:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – The Complete Works, Packard Humanities Institute, published for the 300th anniversary year, 2014
 * Ensayo sobre la verdadera manera de tocar el teclado, spanish version of the Versuch (Eva Martínez Marín ed.), Ed. Dairea, Galapagar, Madrid, Spain, 2017
 * Piano Sonatas by CPE Bach played by Taisia Hadizadeh on YouTube
 * Trio sonata in C minor, H. 579, first edition, Sibley Music Library
 * Fantasia e fuga in C minor, H. 75.5, for keyboard instrument, Sibley Music Library
 * , played by Eckhart Duo
 * Early fortepiano after the Silbermann model C. P. E. Bach played in Potsdam
 * A Tribute to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, sketch of the composer's life with extensive references
 * Complete Catalogue of C. P. E. Bach's oeuvre (French)
 * Complete Catalogue of C. P. E. Bach's oeuvre (French)