Thank you

this Bach has more in common with classical composers than his father

CPE Bach is a Classical composer, not a Baroque one; he died just three years before Mozart; you evidently therefore do ‘…care for’ Classical (or at least this bit of it), just not Mozart/Haydn Classical which is most people’s only reference point to music of the period.

Not perhaps your greatest moment on the keyboard. In answer to your points: Not really; not at all; not at all; not really; not relevant; it’s certainly different.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 My last comment was also the most important one 😀. I suspect CPE was a major influence on the young Haydn because of his unique melodic invention and for this alone his vapid viola parts are forgiven . I only wanted to say that his compositions "work" and after all that's the only thing that counts . Sth that can also be said about Gluck: reading the score it is not very impressive but the impression on hearing it is great.

@@christianwouters6764 I think your comments pretty much sum up the difficulties many have in trying to both label and analyse CPE Bach’s music which is not a straightforward task. Not that this is only a modern day problem - it existed in the composer’s own time too. Whilst we can all quote the very positive comments from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and others, it’s worth remembering that this appreciation was not universal then; CPE is not properly understood today either, as many find it difficult to tune in properly to 18th century empfindsamer Stil as expounded by him. I quote from the words of The European Magazine and London Review in the late-18th century which dismissed CPE Bach’s ‘…capricious manner, odd breaks, whimsical modulations, and often very childish manner’. Into the 19th century, Schumann was similarly critical and compared him very poorly to his father JS Bach; he was not a lone voice. You are absolutely correct about Gluck; often statue-esque both on the page and sometimes in performance, I remember well performing many years ago in Orfeo and was astonished by the forward momentum and power of the work whilst on stage, as you say, something not necessarily evident from the score.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 I Remember very well buying a miniature score of Iphigenie in Tauris many years ago and read the overture " the Tempest" and thought OH this is really bad. Later I heard a good recording of it and I really felt I experienced a real tempest! So the dictum of my harmony teacher " what looks good on the score sounds automatically good" surely doesn't work the other way around.