Between 1982 and 1995 a project known as The Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Edition, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and involving dozens of scholars from North America, Britain, and Germany, endeavored to produce a critical edition of the composer's complete works. Many scholars submitted editions, devoting not only years of work to the project but also considerable resources, both their own and those of various institutions. In the end, however, only four volumes were published, and these are no longer in print.
My contributions to the earlier project included editions of two concertos and seven sonatas; the latter were published but the two concertos were not. In fact, my edition of the Concerto in E minor, W. 24, was one of the first manuscripts submitted, in the early 1980s. I believe it contains valuable scholarship, but it has remained unpublished for more than twenty years. In the meantime an excellent recording of the work by Miklos Spanyi and Concerto Armonico has appeared on volume 7 of their series C. P. E. Bach: Complete Keyboard Concertos (Bis CD-857).
I am currently preparing a new edition of this work for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works, a project organized by the Packard Humanities Instititute. That edition, when it appears, will supersede the present one in some ways, but it will also reflect different editorial principles. The present edition, the first of the work, will, I think, remain of some value, and for now it is the only one available.
This online edition includes the following components. The score files are necessarily large (2.5 to 7.0 MB). The midi files provide synthesized audio versions of these files but of course do not constitute genuine performances of the music, for which see the recording described above. Please write to me (dschulen AT wagner.edu) if you are interested in obtaining hard copy or performance material, or if you have comments about the edition.
preface (pdf)
score of the earliest authenticable version (Version A)
movement 1 (pdf) movement 1 (midi)
movement 2 (pdf) movement 2 (midi)
movement 3 (pdf) movement 3 (midi)
score of the latest authenticable version (Version D)
movement 1 (pdf) movement 1 (midi)
movement 2 (pdf) movement 2 (midi)
movement 3 (pdf) movement 3 (midi)
critical commentary (pdf)
list of variant readings (pdf)
appendix (selected variant readings in score)
movements 1-3 (pdf file for all three movements)
The scores for Versions A and D are identically formatted: system and page breaks occur at the same points in both scores. Thus, if you open them in separate windows and scroll them simultaneously, it is theoretically possible to compare corresponding passages with ease. Of course, this is especially practical if you have an extra-large monitor.
The scores employ a useful notational convention retained from the old project: accidentals, ornament signs, and other symbols are placed within brackets if they are entirely editorial, that is, found in no source. Where one of these readings is absent from the principal source, but does occur in one or more other sources, it appears in parentheses and the sources giving the parenthesized reading are enumerated in the list of variant readings.
The score files have recently been updated (April 18, 2007) to incorporate corrections. However, the critical report and lists of variant readings are those previously prepared, and they do not reflect the identification of one additional manuscript copy of the work (fortunately the latter is not of great significance to the edition). Scholars looking for current information about the sources are asked to wait for the print edition mentioned above.
Last updated 4/19/07.