Author Description

C.P.E. Bach wrote twelve sonatinas for cembalo and orchestra between 1762 and 1764. Most of the movements are arrangements of his character pieces and are, therefore, quite different from the cembalo concertos he wrote during the same decade, even though both sonatinas and concertos are scored in a similar fashion. Like their prototypes, these sonatinas are stylistically varied--they are accessible and full of charming, sometimes playful, ideas intended to meet the demands of a middle-class public for entertaining music. The preparation of this volume is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency of the United States of America.