CPE Bach in Hamburg

Piers Adams celebrates CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to the city of Hamburg, where the 54-year-old Emanuel Bach began a new career as music director to the city's churches. Dutch keyboard player Pieter Jan Belder samples the vast collection of fortepianos and clavichords at the Museum of Decorative Arts, and there is a visit to the crypt of the Michaeliskirche where Emanuel Bach is buried.CPE Bach's three decades in Hamburg were the happiest and most productive of his career. He arrived there following many frustrating years at the Berlin court of Frederick the Great, who, he felt, never appreciated his talents. Emanuel took over the job previously occupied by his godfather Telemann in 1768, looking after the music of Hamburg's five main churches. He also found time to launch a series of subscription concerts, as well as leading a lively social life, as the English music historian Charles Burney noted when he paid him a visit. According to Burney, the best of CPE Bach's music is to be found in his keyboard works, and Pieter Jan Belder plays pieces written both for the new Hammerklavier, and for Emanuel's favourite instrument, the clavichord. Hamburg loved CPE Bach: one obituary praised his style as being so much superior to the 'kling-klang' of his contemporaries.