C.P.E. Bach's cello concertos began as works featuring his own instrument—the keyboard—and also exist as flute concertos. The Cello Concerto in A major is nearly identical to the flute concerto in the same key, Wq 168 (H. 438). The opening Allegro movement begins with a lively and extended orchestral ritornello; the cellist enters, mimics the bumptious opening notes of the ritornello, but soon veers off in another direction. The orchestra brings back the ritornello theme as if to remind the soloist of the music's proper course, but the cello then launches into jagged, perpetual-motion material (derived from a brief figure late in the ritornello), and here C.P.E. Bach begins one of his typical forays into unexpected keys. The give-and-take between orchestra and soloist continues, with the cello at one point exploring the more lyrical possibilities of its material. The orchestra introduces the Largo with a sighing, lugubrious theme built from an ascending minor third and descending minor seconds, a melody that allows the cello many expressive possibilities. The minor-key lament continues at some length, the soloist, even in the final recitative, never drifting far from the main melody, which the orchestra periodically recalls. The Allegro assai propels itself with high contrast with an energetic, pulsing ritornello that occasionally pulls up short for a couple of musing bars and solo passages that initially emphasize the theme's more cantabile elements. The orchestra, interrupting at shorter and shorter intervals, eventually browbeats the cellist into taking up more energetic material until the soloist is freely elaborating on the more hyperactive elements of the ritornello theme.

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