Key Visual for the anniversary year of CPE Bach 2014.
By Ereigniskontor Sauer GmbH - http://www.cpebach.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30457386
In Hamburg, Germany there are a number of museums in the Composer’s Quarters of the City. In 2014, a museum dedicated to C.P.E. Bach was opened in commemoration of his birth, 300 years previously. The other museums in the area celebrate Johannes Brahms, Georg Telemann, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler and Johann Adolf Hasse.
C.P.E Bach was the second surviving son of J.S. Bach and his first wife, Maria Barbara. Georg Telemann was his godfather. Apparently he was left-handed. He was trained by his father and acknowledged that his father was his greatest teacher. He went to Leipzig and Frankfurt Universities to study law, as both he and his father knew that having a university education meant that as a professional musician he would not be treated as a servant. He never practiced law, however his legal skills were useful to him throughout his life. When his father died, C.P.E Bach and his brother, Wilhelm Freidemann were each left a portion of their father’s manuscripts. Whilst Wilhelm Freidemann either lost or sold many that he received, C.P.E. Bach took great care of his and most of what is known about J.S. Bach is due to C.P.E. Bach’s care of his manuscripts. As is described on another blog post on this website, C.P.E. Bach regularly sent money to his widowed step-mother in her later years, the only one of Bach’s surviving sons to help her.
After graduating, he gained a position in the Court of the Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia in Berlin, the future Frederick the Great. When Frederick became king, C.P.E. Bach became part of his orchestra and at this time, the largest part of his composing output was for the clavichord.
Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach Museum, Hamburg
By Ymnes - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73154450
C.P.E. Bach married Johanna Maria Dannemann in 1744. Only three of their children survived to adulthood, one of whom became a painter.
In Hamburg, C.P.E. Bach succeeded Telemann as the curator and music director of the five main churches of the city in 1768. At the time, Hamburg was a more culturally cosmopolitan and culturally progressive city in comparison with Berlin. Because of his position, C.P.E. Bach turned to composing church music.
The works of C.P.E. Bach are known by their “Wq” numbers from Alfred Wotquenne’s 1906 catalogue, and by “H” numbers from a catalogue by Eugene Helm which was collated in 1989.
Some say that C.P.E. Bach was the most musically gifted of Bach’s sons. He is one of the composers who paved the way for the Classical musical period as he contributed to the transition between the two styles. C.P.E. Bach led the way for the development of the Classical sonata. He was a crucial influence on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart said of him ,”Bach is the father, We are the children”.
He was a man of The Enlightenment and was known for his open-mindedness. He mixed with some of the poets, painters, theologians, scientists and philosophers of the time.
Tomb of Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Hamburg
By Gegeours - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16033300
C.P.E Bach’s favoured instrument was the clavichord. His style is frequently turbulent and expressive, it was known as the sensitive style and it applied the principles of rhetoric and drama to musical structures. C.P.E Bach’s style was in contrast to the more mannered galant style that was popular at the time as he embraced the storm and stress ideas in some of his compositions. Some of his works contain mood swings with their unexpected key, tempo and dynamic changes. His music is mercurial, it is sparkling and unpredictable. In his later years he composed for the pianoforte.
The musicologist Annette Richards states “Timelines are criss-crossed, he is endlessly stopping and starting, wrong-footing the listener and causing his audience to reconsider its relation to the music”.
As a performer, C.P.E. Bach was famous for the precision of his playing, the beauty of his touch and the emotion with which he played.
One of C.P.E. Bach’s lasting legacies is his hugely influential ”Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments”. This essay combines technical advice about ornamentation, improvisation and the importance of correct fingering. Regarding fingering he gives the following advice “more is lost by incorrect fingering than can be compensated for by all the art and good taste in the world”. He introduced the now standard practice of using the thumbs on the keyboard, something that was not in use before. It is also the first text that prescribes a philosophy of performance which for the first time placed the expression of emotion on an equal footing with technical competence.
In this essay he states, “Play from the soul, not like a trained bird”.
References
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
www.britannica.com/biog/
www.theguardian
www.classicfm.com/composers/cpe-bach/guides/cpe-bach-a-life-in-pictures