ABSTRACT
For musicians such as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the war meant not only interruptions in court salary payments but also disruptions in other private musical activity, since many residents of means left the city to avoid the possibility of armed conflict. The project of writing a solo concerto for a principal keyboard instrument, instead of for the more expected violin or oboe, was still rather new and unusual in the 1730s, and one that few composers – apart from Emanuel's father, Sebastian Bach – had pursued. Like all the sonatinas, the two heard are charming, attractive pieces; at the same time, they are less 'serious' and less difficult to understand on the first hearing than Emanuel Bach's earlier concertos. The senior Bach was not alone in his enthusiasm for the new concerto style: from the second decade of the century onward the popularity of Vivaldi's concertos swept through northern Europe.
