Initially, this concerto's opening Allegro assai seems a throwback to Baroque style, with its metronomic, triadic arpeggios and jittery sixteenth-note figures. But the flute enters with completely different material, measured, plaintive, and singing. This may be one of the first concertos for soloist "versus" orchestra, the flute refusing to be bullied by the urgent, angular tutti passages, although it does often fly into dizzying sixteenth-note excursions of its own.

The flute's lyrical tendencies hold sway in the Andante; although the orchestra sometimes falls into gruffness and bluster, the soloist binds the movement together with its cantabile main theme and its tendency to smooth over any rough thematic edges introduced by the orchestra.

The third movement, like the first, is marked Allegro assai, but here the "new" C.P.E. Bach takes charge. His themes are capricious, full of little hiccups and pauses, and are even slightly sinister; they all evolve from the movement's initial cadences. Flute and orchestra trade off and alternate snatches of this material, the soloist sometimes offering birdlike variations, and sometimes indulging in rapid passagework sure to leave an audience breathless in sympathy. Yet Bach accomplishes this without attention-getting speed or loudness, and he kindly allows the overworked flute to fall silent as the orchestra struts by with the principal themes one last time in the coda.

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