Of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s flute concertos, the one in D minor is by far the best known, even though its authenticity has been repeatedly doubted. A version of the same concerto for harpsichord and orchestra is “genuine C.P.E.” and this has always been regarded as the original version. An in-depth study of all source findings does, however, suggest that Bach composed the flute version first. The editor, the flautist András Adorján, is thus able to present a musical text in which many transmission errors have been eliminated. The edition is rounded off by a preface from the C.P.E. Bach specialist Wolfram Enßlin.

Preface
Of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s (1714 – 88) six extant flute concertos, the Concerto in d minor presented in this edition is undoubtedly the best-known. All six were written in Berlin and Potsdam between 1744 and 1755, hence during Bach’s employment at the court of Prussia’s King Friedrich II (cf. Verzeichnis des musikalischen Nachlasses des verstorbenen Capellmeisters Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Hamburg, 1790, pp. 30 – 32. Although this “Catalogue of the Musical Estate” of C. P. E. Bach was published two years after the composer’s death, it can be assumed that Bach himself prepared the cataloguing of at least the instrumental works during his lifetime.) The hypothesis that this group of works may have been written for the king is thus very plausible. The flute was Friedrich’s instrument, and Bach’s main task was to provide keyboard accompaniment for the king’s evening flute playing. Nevertheless, there are no conclusive supporting arguments for such an assumption. On the contrary, Bach’s works did not correspond to the Italian musical style favoured by the king, nor to his technical abilities; moreover, Friedrich’s music library contained hardly any works by Bach. It thus remains unclear as to why the flute concertos were written.

The Concerto in d minor, composed in 1747, is documented in quite a large number of sources. What is missing, however, is a manuscript or an autograph from Bach’s estate. Only copies from other origins survive, and these differ from one another in many details, making their classification and evaluation extremely difficult. Thanks to research into the dating and origins of the copies, we can at least establish that three sources derived from the composer’s immediate circle. They were written in Berlin in the 18th century and originally belonged to Princess Anna- Amalie of Prussia, and to the sisters Zippora Wulff and Sara Levy, with whom Bach cultivated personal relations.

The divergent readings of these three sources sketch an inconsistent picture. The most pronounced difference in the musical text concerns the introductory orchestral ritornello in the first movement, which is repeated in its entirety as da capo after the final flute solo only in Zippora Wulff’s copy (London). The other sources have an abbreviated and slightly amended da capo, introduced by a single transitional measure. We can neither affirm nor refute the claim that the Wulff copy represents an early version, as Konrad Hünteler conjectures (cf. Hünteler, Das Flötenkonzert d-Moll von C. P. E. Bach in neuem Licht, in: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Musik für Europa, ed. by Hans-Günter Ottenberg, Frankfurt/Oder, 1998, p. 332). For the present edition we have chosen the familiar version with the abridged orchestral ritornello at the end of the first movement. Furthermore the keyboard version (see below) contains an abridged and fully notated da capo. The meticulously-copied sets of parts made in Berlin (source C1, partly from the collection of Sara Levy; see the Comments at the end of the present edition) have served as our primary source; when compared with the other sources they prove very reliable.

In spite of its many sources, the authenticity of the popular Flute Concerto in d minor has nonetheless repeatedly been questioned. The estate catalogue, for example, lists only a version for keyboard, strings, basso continuo, and two horns (sic). The entry in the category section for “Concertos” reads: “No. 23. D. minor. B[erlin]. 1747. Clavier, 2 horns, 2 violins, viola and bass” (Nachlassverzeichnis, p. 30). However, Bach’s concertos have frequently survived with alternative solo scorings. His estate catalogue also lists four flute concertos as keyboard concertos, but each time contains notes such as “also arranged for the violoncello and the flute”. Since there is no such note at the entry for the d minor Concerto, the flute version was generally considered as spurious and consequently was omitted from the Wotquenne Catalogue (cf. Thematisches Verzeichnis der Werke von Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach 1714 – 1788, ed. by Alfred Wotquenne, Leipzig etc., 1905, where the keyboard version is entered under Wq 22, p. 4). Even the Helm Catalogue, compiled almost a hundred years later, classifies the Flute Concerto in d minor as a dubious work under the number H 484.1 (cf. Eugene Helm, Thematic Catalogue of the Works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, New Haven/London, 1989, p. 105). These doubts were fuelled by a discovery in one of the sources: the title sheet of the copy belonging to Anna- Amalie of Prussia originally attributed the concerto to “Benda”, making it unclear whether Franz or Georg Anton Benda was meant. Only later did an unidentified scribe delete the name “Benda” and replace it with “C. F. E. Bach”.

In recent times, however, two articles may have dispelled doubts about the authenticity of Bach’s flute version (cf. Elias N. Kulukundis, Thoughts on the Origin, Authenticity and Evolution of C. P. E. Bach’s D Minor Concerto (W. 22), in: Festschrift Albi Rosenthal, ed. by Rudolf Elvers, Tutzing, 1984, pp. 199 – 215, as well as Hünteler, pp. 324 – 338). Both scholars succeeded in producing convincing arguments for Bach’s authorship. Johann Joachim Quantz, for instance, unequivocally attributed the work to his Berlin colleague Carl Philip Emanuel in a partial copy of the flute version. Furthermore, a comparison of the flute and keyboard versions reveals that the one for flute was probably the original. In many passages the right-hand keyboard part seems to be an ornamented variant of the flute part. The left hand, in turn, generally doubles the basso part of the flute version and rarely features independent accompanying figures that are idiomatic to a keyboard instrument (cf. Kulukundis, p. 209). The opening and closing ritornello in the first movement has been shortened by a further seven measures in the keyboard version. On the whole, the flute version makes a musically more compelling and convincing impression.

The reworking of an original flute concerto into a keyboard concerto – but not in the opposite direction – was a perfectly common procedure for Bach. The composer expressed his views about this in the autobiography published by Charles Burney in 1773: “On the whole my works consist of approximately […] 49 concertos for keyboard and other instruments (the latter of which I have also arranged for keyboard)” (Carl Burney’s der Musik Doctors Tagebuch seiner Musikalischen Reisen, vol. 3, Hamburg, 1773, p. 207). There is thus no reason not to regard the flute version of the d minor Concerto as original and authentic.

We wish to express our gratitude to all the libraries mentioned in the Comments for placing the source material at our disposal.

Leipzig, autumn 2014 - Wolfram Enßlin