Flute Concerto in D minor, Wq 22

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach spent nearly thirty years as harpsichordist to Frederick the Great, whose flute playing shaped a good deal of what he wrote in Berlin. The D minor concerto, Wq 22, dates from 1747 and exists in parallel versions for flute and for harpsichord, the usual practice in his concerto output, where the same music is fitted to different soloists. Its outer movements are unusually abrupt and harmonically restless for a court that valued elegance, and it has become the most played of his flute concertos.