Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works is a new edition of the music of C.P.E. Bach. Begun in the wake of the aborted Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Edition, many of the same eminent music scholars associated with the earlier incomplete edition have become involved with the new one. The chair of the new edition is Christopher Hogwood.

The new Complete Works began publication in 2005 under the auspices of the Packard Humanities Institute. A very detailed statement of "Editorial Guidelines," running to some 64 pages, is available in PDF format on the edition's website (http://www.cpebach.org).

The aim of the Editorial Board is to complete the edition in both printed and digital forms by 2014, the 300th anniversary of Emanuel Bach's birth. As of August 2006, six volumes of the edition were in print, including two volumes (III/2 and III/3) containing the ten most important symphonies of this composer (i.e., the six symphonies of Wq. 182 and the "Four Orchestral Symphonies" of Wq. 183).

The edition is organized in the following eight series:

I. Keyboard Music
II. Chamber Music
III. Orchestral Music
IV. Oratorios and Passions
V. Choral Music
VI. Songs and Vocal Chamber Music
VII. Theoretical Works
VIII. Supplement

The music of C.P.E. Bach that was part of the Berlin Singakademie Collection, presumed lost following World War II but recently recovered and now on deposit at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, will provide a rich resource of unique materials never before utilized that the editors of The Complete Works will be able draw upon.

[edit] Sources

  • Website of the Edition.
  • Elias N. Kulukundis, "C.P.E. Bach in the Library of the Singakademie zu Berlin," in Stephen L. Clark, ed., C.P.E. Bach Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), ISBN 0-19-816244-8, pp. 159-76. (Includes a reconstructed listing of the Singakademie's Emanuel Bach holdings, published prior to the recovery of the collection.)
  • "Finding the Lost Manuscripts": Story about the recovered Berlin Singakademie material.