Do not be taken in by the word 'sonatina', by which C. P. E. Bach identified some 12 such works for keyboard and orchestra. These are, in fact, as often as not pieces of considerable substance, both musically and in terms of instrumental resources. Bach wrote them during the early to mid 1760s as his long stint in the service of Frederick the Great was drawing towards its close. Formally, these sonatinas have features in common with the concerto, the suite, the early classical sonata and the Viennese divertimento. Few if any other north German composers experimented along similar lines to these and the engaging cheerfulness of Bach's music, uncomplicated by the more adventurous tonal idiom which characterizes some of his later Hamburg output, should win him a ready and well-disposed audience. The majority of Emanuel's sonatinas are scored for concertato harpsichord or, perhaps, fortepiano with an orchestra of two horns, two flutes, strings and continuo. Two of them, however, are written for two keyboard instruments and one of these, Wq110, is included here. The other, Wq109, alone of the 12, requires an altogether larger orchestra of trumpets, drums, horns, flutes, oboes, bassoon and strings with cello obbligato. Older LP recordings of this fine piece exist on Archiv Produktion and Schwann Musica Mundi. Two other sonatinas included here, Wq104 and Wq105, were among three revised and published in Berlin in the mid 1760s.
The performances capture the elusive qualities of Emanuel Bach's idiosycratic style with charm, and sometimes with virtuosity. The extent to which he calls for the solo keyboard varies considerably, ranging from a role which is only modestly in excess of accompaniment (Wq98 and 105) to one where the solo passages approach keyboard concerto proportions (Wq104). Ensemble is tidy for the most part though there are occasional ragged entries and cadences. Both Virginia Black and Eric Lynn Kelley give fluent accounts of the music and are well supported by the Collegium Aureum. Sometimes I felt that the orchestra could have drummed up a little more exuberance in faster movements and have been less ponderous in slower ones—the Tempo di Menuetto of Wq105 is terribly wooden—but I applaud the warm textures and transparency of sound which prevail throughout. As I have earlier implied, there is little that is either conventional or consistent in the layout of Emanuel Bach's sonatinas, and the four chosen here by no means cover the ground trodden in all 12 of them. It would be a worthwhile endeavour on the part of a record company to explore several more of these inventive and appealing pieces during the bi-centenary of Emanuel's death in the coming year. The recording is excellent but the English translation of the German note is muddled.'