Bach's Attick

As a boy, it is said that Johann Sebastian Bach would creep into his elder brother’s study ‘on moonlit nights’ to copy a music book that he had been banned from seeing. The music that he copied includes composers featured in today’s programme, all of whom had a profound effect on him. I like to imagine Bach playing this music on what was reputedly his favourite keyboard instrument – the clavichord. It certainly played a central role in the life of his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, whose Fantasia in C major embodies the varied stylistic traits of ‘empfindsamkeit’ – a style of theatrical contrasts often known as the '‘sentimental style’'.