Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

The second of J.S. Bach's three sons, Carl Philipp inherited his father's abundant musical gifts. He lived during the mid to late 1700s, as the Baroque tradition gave way to the emerging Classical style, and Carl Philipp was an instrumental figure in this transition. As a youth in Germany, he started his career studying law, abandoning it for music at age 24. C.P.E. Bach's music was praised for its highly inventive sensibility, rife with spontaneity and rich, expressive emotionality.