Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German composer and musician of the Baroque and Classical eras. He was the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach.
Bach was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father's Baroque style and the Classical style that followed it. He was the principal representative of the empfindsamer Stil or 'sensitive style'. The qualities of his keyboard music are forerunners of the expressiveness of Romantic music, in deliberate contrast to the statuesque forms of Baroque music. His organ sonatas mainly come from the galant style.
To distinguish him from his brother Johann Christian, the "London Bach", who at this time was music master to Queen Charlotte of Great Britain, Bach was known as the "Berlin Bach" during his residence in that city, and later as the "Hamburg Bach" when he succeeded Telemann as Kapellmeister there. To his contemporaries, he was known simply as Emanuel. His second name was in honour of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of his father J. S. Bach.
Bach was an influential pedagogue, writing the influential "Essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments", which would be studied by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven, among others.
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