He was at the height of his career and fame his works were widely disseminated, especially those for keyboard, which showed him at his most original.
In his new functions as Kapellmeister of several of the city’s churches, and until his death on December 14, 1788, he composed a number of large-scale choral pieces, as well as presenting some by his father, Handel, Jommelli, and Haydn. Upon the death of his godfather in 1767, Emanuel Bach inherited his duties in Hamburg, leaving Berlin with a great sense of freedom. He had many friends, educated admirers, and musicians (among which the king’s sister Princess Amalia) to whom he presented his many sonatas for various instrumental combinations. Musical life in Berlin, however, offered some gratifying compensations. This position, however, caused him much worry the monarch-a talented flutist-was infatuated with the Italianate galant style, and disliking the boldness of Emanuel’s compositions, confined his duties to mere accompaniment. Three years later, after his employer had acceded to the Prussian throne, he divided his time between Berlin and Potsdam, where the court was most regularly established. He then studied law in Frankfurt, and in 1738, thanks to his solid training as a virtuoso keyboardist, joined the orchestra of the future Frederick II as a harpsichordist. Bach entouré d’amis à Hambourg en 1784, gravure d’Andreas Stottrupīorn on March 8, 1714, in Weimar, fifth child of the great Bach and godson to Georg Philipp Telemann, Emanuel Bach undertook his musical tuition with his father. Like many musicians somewhat derogatorily considered as “transitional,” Emanuel Bach, in the words of the musicologist Carl de Nys, “demonstrates more the torments of future generations than the brief classical balance that was to follow him,” and several of his works could “be considered as the musical equivalent of the Reveries of the Solitary Walker or even of certain passages by Châteaubriand and Lamartine.”Ĭ. Emanuel Bach lived between two great eras heir to both his father’s art and to the unified structures of the Baroque, he contributed to the creation of Sonata Form while keeping to the sidelines of Classicism, which Haydn and Mozart were to bring to its peak. He was indeed one of the most influential composers of his time and his particular qualities made him one of the precursors of musical Romanticism.
Interlaces these extremely opposing timbres such as one ends up not knowing who is who, when a theme begun by one and taken up by another is ended so naturally by the third instrument that all three seem inspired by a single thought.įor the majority of music lovers up until the 1820s, the name Bach didn’t conjure up Johann Sebastian, as is the case today, but rather one of his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who worked successively in Berlin and in Hamburg.
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