Rather than the elemental abstraction of his father’s work, Carl Philipp Emanuel demands distinct colors and a headfirst, visceral engagement between performer and instrument. In Mr. Lubimov’s interpretation, strong attacks bloom with bursts of fragrance. Soft attacks, depending on the mechanism used, ring from a distant horizon or whisper through a veil.

This music — at least the large-scale sonatas and fantasias that begin and end the recording — demand attentive listening. In a positive way, you can never get in a groove: There’s no predictable next note, rhythm, chord or key. Does that unexpected silence at one point mean my headphones cut out? No, this composer wants the listener’s ears to remain queued up for the next surprise. And these effects are not the performer’s whim: They are exhaustively described in C.P.E. Bach’s own tutorial, “Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.”

Most revealing throughout this recording is what a liability for this music is the colossal resonance of the modern piano, when even a clipped staccato note can’t fully decay before the next one sounds. On the tangent piano, one hears not only the beginning of every note, but the end. The instrument allows Mr. Lubimov to play with this space between notes, which he does with endless creativity.