CPE Bach’s life spanned three-quarters of the 18th century – that period from the dying days of the Baroque, its precepts still being manfully defended by his father, to the birth of the High Classical style. Consequently he’s often discussed as a transitional figure in terms either of his stylistic kinship to his father’s music, which he championed and promoted assiduously, or of the influence he exerted over the next generations of composers, especially the Vienna school of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

This is borne out by his own music, especially when, as here, early and later works are juxtaposed. The G minor Sonata, H542/5, is credibly attributed to both JS and CPE, and is the most characteristically ‘Baroque’ piece here, while the D major work, Wq71 of 1731, in four movements rather than three, is closer in construction and execution to the suite than to the sonata. On the other hand, two sonatas from 1763, in C minor (Wq78) and B minor (Wq76), display manners one might associate with the Austrian music of later decades. Slow movements, especially, have about them an audibly Mozartian strain of lyricism and pathos. Interestingly, the violin is rarely subservient to the keyboard, remaining at least on an equal footing and often taking the melodic lead for long stretches. Only in the Arioso – which was in any case conceived as a solo keyboard piece – is the violin heard as little more than an accompanying presence.

The five pieces are treated to beautiful readings from these two leading practitioners of historical performance, Rachel Podger on her 1739 Pesarinius, Kristian Bezuidenhout switching from a Keith Hill copy of a 1769 French harpsichord to a Paul McNulty fortepiano modelled on an early 19th-century Walter. The give and take between them as they dovetail their parts, provoking and responding, is a delight, as is their sensitivity to the range of styles that intermix in the personality-rich music of this fascinating figure – far more than a mere bridge between the two artistic peaks of the 18th century.