CPE Bach in Berlin

Piers Adams continues to celebrate CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace, where Emanuel Bach arrived as an optimistic 26 year old to join the court of Prussia's flute-playing King Frederick the Great.

In a guided tour though the palace we hear how Emanuel Bach's adventurous musical style was not to the King's conservative tastes, and so he spent much of the next 28 years trying to leave the court - but not before he had established himself as Europe's most famous keyboard player and teacher. Emanuel also found a valuable friend in Frederick's sister Anna Amalia, herself an accomplished musician and also something of a court outcast, having secretly married and become pregnant against the King's wishes. We hear movements from CPE Bach's String Symphonies and from his Prussian Sonatas, from new recordings issued to celebrate the anniversary.