Could this be the year of C.P.E. Bach?

Looking through the list of composers who celebrate some sort of anniversary in 2014 is a depressing business. I don’t think I have ever seen such an anonymous collection of small-time nobodies, and yet for them to appear on a list at all suggests that they did something of note, and that someone has heard of it.

The only really big name to qualify is that of Richard Strauss, who was born 150 years ago. Often half-centenaries seem a little forced, not worth the fuss; nonetheless I anticipate there being some fuss about this one, since the cupboard is so bare. The Proms, to take one example, seem annually to live off the biggest-name anniversarians, who are pointed up in colourful articles in the brochure, with photos and learned round-ups of what it’s like to perform the music in question. These are safe articles, not trying to sell anything off-beat, or to justify the inclusion, since the very fact of the centenary does it all for them.