Among the six surviving flute concertos by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the most famous is FLUTE CONCERTO IN D MINOR. All six works were composed in Berlin and Potsdam between 1744 and 1755, during Bach’s time at the court of King Friedrich II. There is a hypothesis that they may have been written specifically for the King. The flute was Friedrich’s favourite instrument, and one of Bach’s main tasks was to provide keyboard accompaniment for the King’s evening flute playing. However, there are no convincing arguments for such an assumption, because Bach’s works did not follow the Italian musical style favoured by the king, nor were they suited to his technical abilities. Furthermore, Friedrich’s music library contains almost no works by Bach. Thus, it remains unclear why and for whom the flute concertos were written. The concerto in D minor was completed in 1747, which is documented in various sources – copies of the manuscript belonging to the Prussian princess Anna-Amalia and to the sisters Zipporah Wolff and Sarah Levi, with whom Bach maintained personal contacts.

A manuscript of the concerto has also been found with the cembalo as the solo instrument, raising doubts as to which version was the original. But recent research in preparation for an edition edited by the celebrated flautist Andras Adorjan confirms that the version of the concerto for flute and orchestra came first.