Bach, C P E: Flute Concerto in D minor, Wq22

These delightful concertos, pleasing in themselves, always fresh and full of invention, also provide a fascinating aural link between the Barock and Classical eras. It was of course C.P.E’s father, Johann Sebastian, who had visited the Prussian court of Frederick the Great, and been fated there for both his keyboard and compositional virtuosity: not the least result of which was his later masterpiece of chamber music, The Musical Offering, which subjects a theme originally devised by Frederick (or a more complex version of it) to endless contrapuntal variation. Perhaps as a result of that trip, C.P.E. secured a place at Frederick’s court, though when he arrived the welcome was not as warm as his father’s: Frederick, as a keen and by no means unskilled flute player, prized Joachhim Johann Quantz as ‘his’ favourite composer, not least because Quantz was especially expert in playing and writing music for the instrument in question.

Nothing loth, C.P.E. set to and fulfilled his duties, and with something of his father’s unbending will: perhaps another reason why he never found favour at the court. Two of the concertos on this disc were originally written for the court’s oboists, but they sit equally well within the compass of the flute when sympathetically transcribed.