AWARDS

CPEB:CW, VIII/4, Portrait Collection (Part I: Catalogue; Part II: Plates) won a 2013 design award from Bookbuilders of Boston at the 56th annual New England Book Show in the professional illustrated category. The judges commented: “We were taken by this series’ classic design and the appropriateness of the simple, minimalistic typesetting… The writers/publishers effectively executed the split volumes, with the books easily referencing each other.” The two-volume set was edited by Annette Richards, with appendices edited by Paul Corneilson.

CPEB:CW, VII/1–3, Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, edited and with commentary by Tobias Plebuch, won a 2012 design award from Bookbuilders of Boston at the 55th annual New England Book Show in the professional, non-illustrated category. The judges were particularly impressed with the page production that enabled editorial footnotes and Bach's original footnotes to be graphically distinct but still easy for the reader to follow.

REVIEWS

“Given the sheer size of the edition, the consistency of the editorial approach is remarkable. Every volume begins with the same excellent general preface, followed by a preface to the series in question and more specialized information about the volume at hand. The editorial guidelines spell out a sensible, modern, and generally unintrusive policy in meticulous detail. . . . is this an indispensable edition? There can be no doubt about it.”
Tilman Skowroneck, Journal of the American Musicological Society (vol. 76, no. 2), 2023

“If any collected works edition of a composer deserves the description ‘monumental,’ it is surely Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works …To be sure, the C.P.E. Bach edition stands on the shoulders of other eighteenth-century monumental editions, including the Joseph Haydn Werke and the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. But it surpasses these in its rigorous view of the sources, its thoughtful editorial philosophy and policies, the quality of the editing and the volumes’ forewords, and its broad view of Bach as a composer working within the context of particular locales at particular times or for particular—and sometimes diverse—audiences.”
Cliff Eisen, BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (vol. 52, no. 1), 2021

“There is very little to match it today, in terms of both the quality of the output and its rectifying of such an enormous omission in the bibliographic storehouse of Western art music. Like the collected editions of yore, it serves several major purposes: the provision of an encyclopedic resource that systematically fills in a particular area of our knowledge of the past; a fresh opportunity to evaluate the achievement of a significant composer; and the availability of works and accompanying resources for refreshing and extending our performing repertory today.”
John Butt, BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (vol. 51, no. 2), 2020

“While music history is littered with ambitiously planned complete editions that never reached the end of the line, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works has all but pulled into the station. With the first volumes having appeared in 2005, it has taken just fifteen years for the series to live up to its ‘complete’ billing. If this testifies to a level of planning that can only be imagined, perusal of any individual volume gives us a tangible sense of the achievement. As has already been widely celebrated, the volumes are handsomely laid out and produced, and they could hardly be more comprehensive in their coverage.”
W. Dean Sutcliffe, BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (vol. 51, no. 2), 2020

“This Complete Works is an edition for the twenty-first century, its slender volumes appearing swiftly, in step with an ambitious production schedule. … [T]he price of these volumes puts them within easy grasp of even our most impecunious graduate students, and within the budgets of university and college libraries… The volumes are sturdy and handsome, with well-chosen facsimile pages… Other important documents have been made readily available, at no cost, through the website of the edition.”
Richard Kramer, Keyboard Perspectives V, 2014

“Nowhere else can one purchase a self-standing scholarly edition, complete with critical report, for only $25. [Magnificat, V/1] It should perhaps go without saying that any music library should be sure to have a copy of this edition in its collection.”
Evan Cortens, Notes, December 2013

“As we have come to expect of this enterprise, the scholarship is of the highest order, and the volume is handsomely, indeed sumptuously, produced. Its modest price…is therefore a welcome surprise.”
John Kitchen, Eighteenth-Century Music (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

“Clearly presented and full of relevant source material and commentary, these volumes are equally as desirable in a library collection as in a performer’s personal collection. … [These] beautiful and fairly weighty navy books…[are] conveniently portable…[and] genuinely affordable volumes for which one gets a lot more than an excellent presentation of the music itself.”
Rachel Chaplin, Early Music, August 2012

“[T]he edition takes as its point of departure a detailed consideration of the sources, their history, and their relationships, a practical and commonsensical ground-up approach … The edition website … is a repository of useful information … [and] the editors … are both accessible and prepared to answer questions.”
Cliff Eisen, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2010 (vol. 63, issue 1)

“[A]n ambitious, brave and enlightened publishing project … amazing value, beautifully printed on heavy paper, richly bound and extraordinarily reasonably priced. Perhaps the most welcome and innovative feature of this collected works is its access to downloadable links from their website … making available, at no charge, performing parts, table of ornaments, digital facsimiles and the Versuch. These editions of C.P.E. Bach truly represent an age of enlightenment!”
Nancy Hadden, Early Music, May 2010

“[T]his complete edition of the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach … bears evidence of monumental planning and labor … [it] will undoubtedly rate as a landmark edition, with handsome production values to match the level of scholarly endeavor … Having everything by C.P.E. Bach available in one format and on a large scale, carried out with the consistency and care that a collected edition of this calibre can bring, is only what is (long) due to one of the most important names in eighteenth-century music.”
W. Dean Sutcliffe, Notes, June 2009

“[P]rinted handsomely and sold at a price that is almost within the pocket of an impoverished student (the most expensive volume costs $30), this edition is a phenomenal success. … Both these works [Volumes IV/5.1 and IV/7.1] are edited scrupulously and … illustrated with a number of apposite facsimiles, and there are useful tables …”
Stephen Roe, Eighteenth-Century Music, 2009 (vol. 6, issue 2)

“The first half-dozen volumes …, soundly edited and handsomely produced, herald the solid textual foundation that will inspire a newly focused view of this extraordinary repertory.”
Richard Kramer, Unfinished Music (Oxford University Press, 2008)

“The critical commentary appended at the end of the musical text—another commendable feature of this collected works edition—goes a long way to answering a host of performance practice questions …”
Wiebke Thormählen, Eighteenth-Century Music, March 2008

“Meticulous research makes these volumes [Miscellaneous Sonatas from Prints, I/5.1 and I/5.2] extremely comprehensive and authoritative, and surely a must-have for all keyboard players.”
Katharine May, The British Clavichord Society Newsletter, February 2008

“This pair of volumes [Miscellaneous Keyboard Works, I/8.1 and I/8.2] is a model of editorial practice and beautifully printed.”
Douglas Hollick, Early Music, August 2007

“With regard to organization, thoroughness of approach and assessment of sources, and presentation, I cannot imagine a better edition. The Packard Humanities Institute is doing the world a great service.”
Neil Coleman, The British Clavichord Society Newsletter, June 2007

“The high-quality paper and clear, very readable print, along with the attractive purchase price … make these volumes a welcome addition to any music collection.”
Paulette Grundeen, The Bulletin of the Boston Clavichord Society, Spring 2007

“[Volume I/3] is altogether a delight … an outstanding volume in an excellent venture, and, at $25 for direct sales, quite unbelievably good value.”
Anthony Noble, The British Clavichord Society Newsletter, October 2006

“It is good to see that a collected edition is once again a real possibility for this composer. … Christopher Hogwood (chair of the editorial board) and his colleagues are to be congratulated on their sterling efforts …”
Susan Wollenberg, Early Music, November 2006