Bach sons

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Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann, Johann Christoph d. J.

In music history, the four sons of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach who also became well-known composers are referred to as Bach sons .

Bach had a total of twenty children: five sons and two daughters from the first marriage (with Maria Barbara Bach ) and six sons and seven daughters from the second marriage (with Anna Magdalena Bach ); half of the children died before the age of 3. Five of the six sons who reached adulthood became musicians, four of whom temporarily surpassed their father's fame as composers and are still performed today:

Another son, Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach (May 11, 1715 - May 27, 1739), also became a musician (organist 1735/36 in Mühlhausen , 1737/38 in Sangerhausen ); However, no compositions by him have survived. The sixth, Gottfried Heinrich Bach , was also musically gifted according to the testimony of his brothers, but was mentally handicapped and did not emerge as an independent musician. The supposed youngest son, PDQ Bach , is fictional.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, also called "Dresdener Bach" or "Hallescher Bach", is considered the most talented, but also the most unhappy of the Bach sons. Like his younger brothers, he was a Thomas student in Leipzig, studied there for a short time and in 1733 became organist at the Dresden Sophienkirche . In 1746 he was appointed music director at the Halle market church Our Dear Women , where he worked until 1764. Since then without a permanent job, he earned his living through concerts, classes and composing. He lived in Braunschweig from 1770 and moved to Berlin in 1774 , where he died impoverished in 1784 .

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, also called "Berliner Bach" or "Hamburger Bach", was more famous during his lifetime than his father Johann Sebastian. After visiting the Latin school in Köthen Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to 1734 was at the Thomas School and then studied in Leipzig and Frankfurt law . Already in the school and student days he emerged as an instrumentalist and composer, but only later turned to music.

In 1738 he joined the chapel of the then Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich as a harpsichordist . In 1741 he received the title "Chamber Harpsichordist". In addition to serving at court, he also took part in middle-class music-making and discussion groups. Princess Anna Amalie of Prussia was one of his patrons, and she appointed him her conductor in 1767.

In March 1768, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach succeeded his late godfather Georg Philipp Telemann in the office of city music director and cantor at the Johanneum in Hamburg.

The compositional oeuvre of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is extraordinarily extensive and diverse, with works for piano in the foreground. It includes symphonies, piano concertos, chamber music, around 200 piano sonatas, passions, oratorios and numerous songs. Of great importance is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's two-part textbook “ Attempting to Really Play the Piano ” (1753 and 1762). As a “piano virtuoso”, teacher and important composer of the pre-classical period , he was highly regarded by the three Viennese classics .

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach died on December 14, 1788 in Hamburg.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, also called "Bückeburger Bach", was also a Thomas student and briefly a law student. In 1751 he became concertmaster of the Bückeburg court orchestra of Count Schaumburg-Lippe and friend Johann Gottfried Herders , from whom texts for oratorios and cantatas originate. Wilhelm Friedemann considered him the best harpsichordist in the family.

In Bückeberg he married the court singer Lucia Elisabeth Münchhausen, made the band one of the best in Germany and composed piano, chamber music, oratorios and 19 symphonies . The move of court preacher Herder to Weimar, however, slowed his creative power in 1776, until Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach got to know the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Christoph Willibald Gluck in London .

His son Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach , a student of his father and his uncle Johann Christian Bach, was the last “composing Bach”.

Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach, also called "Milanese Bach" or "Londoner Bach", was taught by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach after his father's death. He was the cathedral organist in Milan and was a sought-after opera composer in London for 20 years .

The 8-year-old Mozart learned Johann Christian's way of composing and how to play the piano on the modern pianoforte during his stay in London in 1764 , which his sister Nannerl reported on. As a teenager, Mozart rewrote three piano sonatas by Johann Christian Bach as piano concertos; later the two composers met in Paris and exchanged musical ideas.

The importance of the Bach sons for the pre-classical period

Late baroque, pre-classical and Bach's declining acceptance

From around 1730 - around 20 years before Bach's death and 30 years before that of Georg Friedrich Handel - the strictly polyphonic music of the late Baroque was increasingly felt to be too heavy. The new fashion trends are referred to as Rococo or, in music, either as style gallant or as preclassical .

All of Bach's sons - admittedly individually different - adhered to this early classical period from today's perspective. Nevertheless, in the second half of the 18th century, their talent and their widely scattered places of work made a decisive contribution to keeping their father's name and musical legacy alive.

Bach's pupils , of whom Johann Ludwig Krebs is the best known , also contributed to the lasting fame of Johann Sebastian Bach, which of course was temporarily surpassed by some of Bach's sons . Nevertheless, Bach's work was less present from around 1730 and was performed less and less in public.

The shift to lightness and "gallant style"

The composers of the pre-classical period (around 1730 to 1760) endeavored to replace the “baroque gusto” with more easily understandable, graceful and light compositions. This was pushed forward in roughly equal parts from three sides:

  • by the four sons of Bach, for example Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's works were sometimes referred to as "musical monsters" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ,
  • from the Mannheim and North German School and
  • from the Viennese school of the early classical period.

The early classical music was also strongly promoted by the fact that the bourgeoisie gained increasing importance for culture and wanted music that was more catchy and less strict. This was done in several steps: Rococo, rationalism / irrationalism , sensitive / gallant style and Sturm und Drang . In part, the growing interest in opera, which is becoming more dramatic (see Christoph Willibald Gluck), contributed to the change in style .

Some signs of the early classical style change

The aspirations of the style gallant and the characteristics of the pre-classic are described differently and the set epoch boundaries differ over 10 years. Reference is often made to the Rococo, which was around the same time, because the new gallant style also wants to stand out gracefully and easily from the “baroque pomp” and its pathos .

The Bach sons oppose the affect and style of their father with a new sensitivity : transparency for the listener is also a main concern of the Mannheim pre-classics. The densely polyphonic “learned style” ( stile grave ) changes rather abruptly to the homophonic “galant style” ( stile galante ). Even Father Bach called his published 1731 Partitas for piano Galanterien to settle by using this fashionable label his works better.

The spirit of the times allowed for previously frowned upon ideas and a certain liveliness. The musical ideas were therefore designed in a contrasting manner, the dynamics became more extensive and made greater use of rapid changes in volume . One innovation was the “Mannheim rocket”, the dynamic of which consisted of a rapidly increasing crescendo eruption. Later on, the dynamics controlled by the doctrine of affect in the Baroque era took on intermediate stages of more recent character such as sforzando or strong diminuendo .

The themes of the compositions were also given a stronger contrast, were now more symmetrical and enriched with melodious phrases. At the same time - especially by some representatives of the Mannheim and Vienna Schools - the main sonata form was modernized. A second topic was pushed, paying more attention to the more harmonious implementation.

Summary: Expression now through melody

In general, the early classical music deviated from the polyphonic interweaving of independent voices. The only carrier of the expression was the melody on top , which was mostly tied to three tones. The sentence technique went from linear ( counterpoint ) to vertical ( harmony ).

literature

  • Percy M. Young : The Bach's. 1500-1850. German Publishing House for Music, Leipzig, 1978.
  • Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-7632-5052-2 .
  • Martin Geck: The Bach Sons (= rororo monograph 50654). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-499-50654-8 .