Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Weimar, March 8, 1714
– December 14, 1788) was a Germany|German
musician and composer, the second son of Johann
Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. He was a
founder of the Classical music era|Classical
style.



When he was ten years old he entered the St.
Thomas School at Leipzig, of which in 1723 his
father had become cantor, and continued his
education as a student of jurisprudence at the
universities of Leipzig (1731) and of Frankfurt an
der Oder (1735). In 1738 he took his degree, but
at once abandoned all prospects of a legal career
and determined to devote himself to music. 

A few months later he obtained an appointment in
the service of the crown prince of Prussia, on
whose accession in 1740 he became a member of the
royal household. He was by this time one of the
foremost clavier-players in Europe, and his
compositions, which date from 1731, included about
thirty sonatas and concerted pieces for his
favourite instrument. 

His reputation was established by the two sets of
sonatas which he dedicated respectively to
Frederick the Great and to the grand duke of
Württemberg; in 1746 he was promoted to the
post of chamber musician, and for twenty-two years
shared with Karl Heinrich Graun, Johann Joachim
Quantz, and Johann Gottlieb Naumann the continued
favour of the king. 

During his residence at Berlin, he wrote a fine
setting of the Magnificat, in which he shows more
traces than usual of his father's influence; an
Easter cantata; several symphony|symphonies and
concerted works; at least three volumes of songs;
and a few secular cantatas and other occasional
pieces. But his main work was concentrated on the
clavier, for which he composed, at this time,
nearly two hundred sonatas and other solos,
including the set Mit veränderten Reprisen
(1760-1768) and a few of those für Kenner und
Liebhaber. Meanwhile he placed himself in the
forefront of European critics by his Versuch
über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, a
systematic and masterly treatise which by 1780 had
reached its third edition, and which laid the
foundation for the methods of Muzio Clementi and
Cramer. 

In 1768 Bach succeeded Georg Philipp Telemann as
Capellmeister at Hamburg, and in consequence of
his new office began to turn his attention more
towards church music. Next year he produced his
oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste, a
composition remarkable not only for its great
beauty but for the resemblance of its plan to that
of Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah (oratorio)|Elijah,
and between 1769 and 1788 added over twenty
settings of the Passion, and some seventy
cantatas, litany|litanies, motets, and other
liturgical pieces. At the same time, his genius
for instrumental composition was further
stimulated by the career of Joseph Haydn. He died
in Hamburg on December 14, 1788.

Through the latter half of the 18th century, the
reputation of C. P. E. Bach stood very high.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said of him, "He is the
father, we are the children."  The best part of
Haydn's training was derived from a study of his
work. Ludwig van Beethoven expressed for his
genius the most cordial admiration and regard.
This position he owes mainly to his clavier
sonatas, which mark an important epoch in the
history of musical form. Lucid in style, delicate
and tender in expression, they are even more
notable for the freedom and variety of their
structural design; they break away altogether from
the exact formal antithesis which, with the
composers of the Italy|Italian school, had
hardened into a convention, and substitute the
wider and more flexible outline which the great
Vienna|Viennese masters showed to be capable of
almost infinite development. 

The content of his work, though full of invention,
lies within a somewhat narrow emotional range, but
it is not less sincere in thought than polished
and felicitous in phrase. Again he was probably
the first composer of eminence who made free use
of harmonic colour for its own sake since the time
of Orlando di Lasso|Lassus, Claudio
Monteverdi|Monteverdi, and Carlo
Gesualdo|Gesualdo, and in this way also he takes
rank among the most important pioneers of the
First Viennese School. His name fell into some
neglect during the 19th century, with Robert
Schumann notoriously opining that "as a creative
musician he remained very far behind his father";
in contrast, Johannes Brahms held Emanuel Bach in
high regard and edited some of his music. Today,
no student of music can afford to disregard
Emanuel's Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber,
his oratorios Die Israeliten in der Wüste and
Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, and several
harpsichord concertos such as those in G major
(Wq. 3) and D major (Wq. 11).

A list and critical account of his voluminous
compositions may be found in the New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980).

==Reference==

1911