Signum Classics's publicity cleverly uses descriptions by the period-instrument players from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to promote CPE Bach and his work. "Avant-garde," they say, "eccentric," "a maniac," "wild and adventurous," "off the wall". They're talking about a composer who often seems to prefer the oblique or far-fetched connection, the Tristram Shandyesque route, to conventional directness. On a disc that's got characteristics of a switchback ride littered with moments of suspension and calm, conductor Rebecca Miller begins her exploration in style with the cut and thrust of the Symphony in D, Wq183 /1. What follows (the symphonies in A, Wq182/4, in B minor Wq182 /5, in F Wq183/3 and E flat, Wq179/3) is every bit as fine. url.ie/y2x7