C. P. E. Bach

Old Bach's second son, and the Bach people meant when they said Bach in the middle of the eighteenth century. He spent nearly thirty years as harpsichordist at the court of Frederick the Great, then succeeded his godfather Telemann in Hamburg.

His Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments is the primary document for performance practice of the period, and Haydn said he learned everything from it. His music belongs to the empfindsamer Stil: abrupt silences, violent dynamic contrasts, modulations without warning, emotion behaving like interrupted speech. Coming to it from his father's equilibrium feels like skipping half a century.