C. P. E. in Toronto

To most laymen, and many a concertgoer, the name Bach refers to Johann Sebastian Bach, who left behind him a musical reputation second only to that of Ludwig van Beethoven. But Johann Sebastian was only one of many talented Bachs who furnished Germany with music for seven generations. Himself the culmination of a long line of Bachs, the great Johann Sebastian begot 20 children, three of whom became composers of world renown: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Most gifted of this trio was Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-88), whose fame long outshone his father's. For 27 years C. P. E. had the politically impressive but musically dubious honor of accompanying Frederick the Great while he bore down on the flute. Frederick played a repertory of some 300 concertos in relentless rotation, nearly wore his accompanist out. When the Seven Years' War began, C. P. E. got temporary relief.

But during his spare time, C. P. E. managed to turn out some 700 compositions, many of them big in scale, revolutionary in manner, rich in quality. They set musical styles for a hundred years after his death. Among the most popular were 52 concertos for harpsichord and strings, some of which are still played in concerts today. Nine of them have been published, many have disappeared.

Mr. Koldofsky's Mystery. C. P. E.'s long-lost concertos have had a way of turning up in unexpected places. Recently Toronto musical circles have been celebrating the discovery of a rich cache of 14 C. P. E. concertos. To do them justice, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. brought world-famed Harpsichordist Wanda Landowska to Toronto and set her to work playing the concertos, one by one, in a series of Sunday evening broadcasts.

How C. P. E.'s concertos got to Toronto, nobody knows. Nine years ago a Toronto violinist and collector named Adolph Koldofsky was approached in a Toronto music store by a little Englishman named Barnes who was trying to sell a batch of old musical manuscripts. Barnes, a paper hanger, house painter and grocer who dabbled in collecting, said he had found his manuscripts about 20 years before in a little bookstore at Richmond and York Streets. The shop had since been torn down. Its owner, one Rosenthal, had died.

The frayed and yellow manuscripts were written in a beautiful 18th-Century hand, and each bore the name of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Koldofsky bought the manuscripts and started a six-year search through musical libraries. He found that the manuscripts were not in C. P. E.'s own handwriting. Seven turned out to be copies of concertos by C. P. E. already listed or known to exist in European collections. The other seven, so far as Koldofsky has been able to discover, are new to the musical world. Since all the scripts are in the same handwriting, and all bear C. P. E.'s name, there is no good reason to suppose that all are not authentic C. P. E. They sound like it when Wanda Landowska plays them.

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