This symphony is among those C. P. E. Bach composed in Berlin, where he was a court musician in the emplo of King Frederick the Great. All the Berlin symphonies were composed for an orchestra of strings alone, but Bach later added wind parts to this symphony.

The symphony was composed in 1756. Both the original version and the one with a wind section (a pair each of horns, two oboes, and two flutes are both extant. It reveals that Bach did not change the string parts at all. He described the effect of adding the winds as "reinforcement," but his orchestral thinking went farther than that, and the addition adds an attractive variety of sound to this very accomplished and attractive symphony. (The original string version is catalogued as H 652 and Wq 177. The touring Englishman, Charles Burney, whose written observations on musical life in eighteenth-century Central Europe is an invaluable source, reported that the e minor symphony was recommended to him by Hasse as the finest symphony he had ever heard.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide