I sentimenti di Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

I originally wrote this piece as a piéce d'occasion for the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, to complement the Mozart Concerto for flute, harp and strings.
Retaining the note values of the original with exactitude, I have to set C. P. E. Bach's Fantasy-Sonata for piano and violin of 1787 for solo flute, harp and strings. I was my purpose to project the extremely interesting and expressive harmonic material of this composition into a larger instrumental apparatus and thereby to make its future-oriented harmonic structures more manifest and plastic. The strings can be presented in two different forms: either as a string quartet and a string quintet, or as string quartet and tutti strings. As will be seen, I have also attempted to loosen up and set in a concertante manner the sound of the strings in the spirit of early classic chamber music.
- Hans Werner Henze