Johann Christian Bach (1735 – 1782) was a German
composer of the Classical era, the eighteenth child of
Johann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven
sons. After a spell in Italy, Bach moved to London in
1762, where he became known as "the London Bach". He is
also sometimes known as "the English Bach", and during
his time spent living in the British capital, he came
to be known as John Bach. He is noted for playing a
role in influencing the concerto styles of Haydn and
Mozart. He contr...(+)
Johann Christian Bach (1735 – 1782) was a German
composer of the Classical era, the eighteenth child of
Johann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven
sons. After a spell in Italy, Bach moved to London in
1762, where he became known as "the London Bach". He is
also sometimes known as "the English Bach", and during
his time spent living in the British capital, he came
to be known as John Bach. He is noted for playing a
role in influencing the concerto styles of Haydn and
Mozart. He contributed significantly to the development
of the new sonata principle.
Johann Christian Bach was born to Johann Sebastian and
Anna Magdalena Bach in Leipzig, Germany. His
distinguished father was already 50 at the time of his
birth—an age gap exemplified by the sharp differences
in the musical styles of father and son. Even so,
father Bach instructed Johann Christian in music until
his death in 1750. After his father's death, he worked
(and lived) with his second-oldest half brother Carl
Philipp Emanuel Bach, who was twenty-one years his
senior and considered at the time to be the most
musically gifted of Bach's sons.
Bach lived in Italy for many years starting in 1750,
studying with Padre Martini in Bologna. He became
organist at the Milan cathedral in 1760. During his
time in Italy, he converted from Lutheranism to
Catholicism and devoted much time to the composition of
church music, including music for a Requiem Mass and a
Te Deum. His first major work was a Mass, which
received an excellent performance and acclaim in 1757.
In 1762, Bach travelled to London to première three
operas at the King's Theatre, including Orione on 19
February 1763. In 1764 or 65 the castrato Giusto
Fernando Tenducci, who became a close friend, created
the title role in his opera Adriano in Siria at King's.
That established his reputation in England, and he
became music master to Queen Charlotte. In 1766, Bach
met soprano Cecilia Grassi, who was eleven years his
junior, and married her shortly thereafter. They had no
children. J. C. Bach performed symphonies and concertos
at the Hanover Square Rooms on the corner of Hanover
Square and Hanover Street. This was London’s premier
concert venue in the heart of fashionable Mayfair. The
surrounding Georgian homes offered well-to-do clientele
for his performances.
He enjoyed a promising career, first as a composer then
as a performer playing alongside Carl Friedrich Abel,
the notable player of the viola da gamba. He composed
cantatas, chamber music, keyboard and orchestral works,
operas and symphonies. One of London’s primary
literary circles, which included Jane Timbury, Robert
Gunnell Esq., Lord Beauchamp, and the Duchess of
Buccleuch, was acquainted with Bach, and members were
regular attendees at his events. By the late 1770s,
both his popularity and finances were in decline. By
the time of Bach's death on New Year's Day 1782, he had
become so indebted (in part due to his steward
embezzling his money), that Queen Charlotte stepped in
to cover the expenses of the estate and provided a life
pension for Bach's widow. He was buried in the
graveyard of St. Pancras Old Church, London.Johann
Sebastian Bach had four sons who followed in his
musical footsteps. He taught all four: Wilhelm
Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph
Friedrich, and Johann Christian. Bach died when Johann
Christian was only 15, so his older brother Carl
Philipp Emanuel took over his musical education. Those
two were considered the most talented and accomplished
of the sons.
The influence of the "London Bach" upon Mozart is often
thought to reside in the former's orchestral and
operatic works, which Mozart is known to have studied
closely. The little keyboard sonatas recorded here,
however, were equally influential. The child Mozart
turned two of them (plus a third not included here)
into piano concertos, and the patterns found in these
works continued to hang in Mozart's mind into his
maturity. Consider the impressive Keyboard Sonata in C
minor, Op. 17/2, composed in 1772 and 1773, whose
emotional path closely parallels that of the Mozart
Piano Sonata in C minor, K. 457. The other sonatas here
are all in two movements rather than three. Yet not
only the sunny mood but also the confident three-part
structures of the sonata expositions, with first theme,
second theme, and closing theme spelling out a large
IV-V-I cadence, sound extremely Mozartian in
retrospect. These sonatas were written for Bach's
powerful student-patrons, with Queen Consort Charlotte
of Mecklenburg at the top of the list, and they have a
pleasing combination of sophistication and modest
technical demands. The earlier set, Opus 5, was the
first British publication to specify either harpsichord
or piano. A harpsichord was still the primary choice,
but the playing of Russian keyboardist Olga Martynova,
while impressive in its precision, is a bit too
mechanical for the coquettish spirit of the music. The
studio sound from the Russian audiophile label Caro
Mitis, however, is, if anything, even beyond the
imprint's usual high standard, and the album as a whole
is about brilliant surfaces over which the listener
slides with pleasure. The detailed and engaging booklet
notes by Larisa Kirillina, given in Russian, German,
and English, are a bonus.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christian_Bach)
Although originally written for Flute Quartet, I
created this Arrangement of the Sonata in C Major (W.
B. 58 No. 3) for Flute & Piano.
