Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795) - Sinfonia (B-Dur) | a | X par: obl: | Due Violini |
Viola, et Basso
| Due Corni | Due Clarinetti | Flauto | et Fagotto (c.1794)
Performers: RIAS Bach Orchestra; Günther Arndt (1907-1976, conductor)
Painting: Unknown - Leipzig (1815)
Further info: Symphonies of the Bach Sons
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German composer. Son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and Anna
Magdalena Bach (1701-1760), he was known as the ‘Bückeburg Bach’. He
received his musical education from his father and his cousin Johann
Elias Bach (1705-1755) at the Thomasschule. After leaving the
Thomasschule, he is thought to have studied law briefly, but there is no
record of his matriculation at Leipzig University. In 1750, upon the
death of his father, he was offered a position as harpsichordist with
Count Wilhelm von Schaumberg-Lippe in Bückeburg. In 1759 he was elevated
to concertmaster, a position he retained for the remainder of his life.
He did not travel, save for a visit to his youngest brother, Johann
Christian Bach (1735-1782), in London in 1778, preferring the calm
surroundings of his small town. He was able to create music that was
different from his brothers, thanks both to the intellectual stimulus of
people such as Johann Gottfried Herder and his patron’s penchant for
Italian music. His son, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759-1845), was
trained in this environment, becoming the third direct generation of the
family of Johann Sebastian to pursue a career in music. The arrival in
Bückeburg about 1793 of the Bohemian musician Franz Neubauer presented
Bach with unaccustomed competition in the last years of his life. It
inspired him to write new works (including a dozen large-scale
symphonies and several double concertos) but it also intensified the
latent depression from which he had been suffering since the death of
his half-brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and which may
have hastened the course of the chest ailment that brought about his
death on 26 January 1795. In his obituary his friend Karl Gottlieb
Horstig, superintendent at Bückeburg from 1793, described him as an
industrious composer, always ready to be of service, and praised his
upright character and ‘kindness of heart’. As a composer, his music,
cataloged by Hansdieter Wolfarth (and using BR numbers), includes eight
oratorios, a Miserere, nine sacred cantatas, 55 secular cantatas, odes,
or other similar works, 79 Lieder, 28 symphonies, 16 piano concertos,
three sinfonia concertantes (titled “concerto grosso” by Bach himself), a
septet, six flute quartets and six string quartets, 13 trio sonatas,
six piano trios, 22 sonatas (for flute, violin, or cello), 43 keyboard
sonatas, and around 92 miscellaneous pieces for the keyboard. He was
known for his ability to imbue drama into his works, particularly the
oratorios, as well as his adherence to sonata principles and a
progressive sense of harmony and orchestral color. Although much of his
music did not survive the Second World War, what is left demonstrates
that he was as innovative in his own way as his siblings. Among the
better known of his pupils, in addition to his son Wilhelm Friedrich
Ernst, were the future Thomaskantor August Eberhard Müller and perhaps
Adolf, Baron von Knigge. For teaching purposes he wrote a number of
pedagogically valuable keyboard works, including the 'Sechs leichte
Clavier-Sonaten', variations, concertos and sonatas for four hands.
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