A sequence of fantasias by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach illustrates both his individuality and his pivotal position between generations: that of his father and the high Baroque, and of Haydn and Mozart, respectively 18 and 42 years his junior, whose music he so audibly influenced. It also makes the listener aware that, beyond the keyboard theatrics, harmonic non sequiturs and wildness of invention, he was not above falling back on stock gestures just a little too often: sequences of chords in minims marked to be played as arpeggios crop up with what becomes slightly wearying regularity.

Not that this renders the music unable to surprise, entertain and even sometimes move the listener – qualities emphasised by Aapo Häkkinen’s choice of keyboards. A pair of clavichords provide an intimate frame for the central group of three single‑movement fantasias played on a Viennese fortepiano, ringing and brash in comparison. The opening sonata is there by dint of its fantasia finale, before which come a terse, toccata-like Allegro and the sort of Adagio that Haydn must have carried in his mind’s ear when he embarked upon composition of his own sonatas. The non-fantasia music marks a change of pace: to hear the slightly workmanlike D minor Fugue after its companion Fantasia (Wqdeest H349) is to hear CPE suddenly realise that the stern shade of his father is standing behind him and he must shamefacedly put away his youthful impetuosity and make sure his counterpoint is all present and correct.

Bach père shows how it’s done in the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, inaugurating the closing sequence and the album’s finest music. Both the Rondo subtitled ‘Farewell to my Silbermann Clavichord’, with its sighing figures, and the throbbing F sharp minor Fantasia ‘CPE Bach’s Feelings’ have become popular among pianists (recently including Marc-André Hamelin and Danny Driver), and you can hear why: a greater thematic consistency and formal certainty in preference to the extravagant stream-of-consciousness of the earlier fantasias. Häkkinen exploits the strengths and weaknesses of his chosen clavichords in sounds ranging from a febrile lyricism to something akin to the strumming of an angry guitar. Queasy Bebung is deployed for its expressivity. There is action noise and a fair amount of key thump from all three instruments. Nevertheless, the effect is intimate, ear-catching and, in its own way, enthralling.