January 13 – April 5, 2014
Harvard University  |  Houghton Library and Loeb Music Library

C.P.E. Bach, the second son of Johann Sebastian Bach, became one of the most prolific and influential composers of the eighteenth century. His oeuvre encompassed virtually every musical genre of the time, except opera, and he wrote one of the most important and enduring music treatises on keyboard instruments. During his lifetime, he enjoyed a high reputation, and his music was widely distributed in print and in manuscript.

Drawing on a wealth of materials at Harvard, with a selection of important items generously lent by other institutions and individuals, Houghton Library and the Loeb Music Library are mounting complementary exhibitions to celebrate the 300th birthday of C.P.E. Bach. The Loeb Library exhibition focuses on the editorial challenges and current editorial practice behind the ongoing publication of Bach’s complete works. The Packard Humanities Institute — in cooperation with the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, the Sächsische Akademie zu Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, and Harvard University — is producing a critical edition, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works, projected to run to 115 volumes, with more than half that number now in print.

The Houghton exhibition explores Bach’s intellectual and musical background by documenting the Bach family heritage, his service in the court of Frederick the Great, his interactions with authors, his important keyboard treatise, his reputation in his lifetime, his standing with his contemporaries, his later career in Hamburg, and his musical legacy.