Johan Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach, painted in London by Thomas Gainsborough, 1776 (Museo Civico, Bologna)

Johann Christian Bach (September 5, 1735 – January 1, 1782) was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living there. He is noted for influencing the concerto style of Mozart.

Life

Johann Christian Bach was born on September 5, 1735 to Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach in Leipzig, Germany. His distinguished father was already 50 at the time of his birth, which would perhaps contribute to the sharp differences between his music and that of his father. Even so, his father first instructed him in music until he died when Johann Christian was 15, after which he worked with his second oldest brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, considered at the time to be the most musically gifted of Bach's sons. He lived in Italy for many years starting in 1756, first studying with Padre Martini in Bologna and later with Giovanni Battista Sammartini. He became an organist at a cathedral in Milan in 1760.

During his time in Italy he converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. He met soprano Cecilia Grassi in 1766 and married her shortly thereafter. She was about eight years older than Johann Christian and, perhaps because of this, they never had children.

He enjoyed a promising career, first as a composer then as a performer playing alongside Karl Friedrich Abel, a notable player of the viola da gamba. He was also appointed as music master for Queen Charlotte. He composed cantatas, chamber music, keyboard and orchestral works, operas and symphonies. He died in London.

Posthumous evaluation

Although Bach's fame declined in the decades following his death, his music still showed up on concert programmes in London with some regularity, often coupled with works by Haydn. In the 19th century, scholarly work on the life and music of Johann Christian's father began, but this often led to the exaltation of J. S. Bach's music at the expense of that of his sons; Phillip Spitta claimed towards the end of his J. S. Bach biography that "it is especially in Bach's sons that we may mark the decay of that power which had culminated [in Sebastian] after several centuries of growth" (Spitta, Vol. 3, p. 278), and J.S.'s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, said specifically of Christian that "The original spirit of Bach is . . . not to be found in any of his works" (New Bach Reader, p. 458). It was not until the 20th century that scholars and the musical world began to realize that Bach's sons could legitimately compose in a different style than their father without their musical idioms being inferior or debased, and composers like Johann Christian began to receive renewed appreciation.

Johann Christian Bach is of some historical interest as the first composer who preferred the piano to older keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord. Johann Christian’s early music shows the influence of his older brother Carl Philipp Emanuel, while his middle period in Italy shows the influence of Sammartini.

Contrasting styles of J. S. Bach and J. C. Bach

Johann Christian Bach's father died when he was only fifteen, perhaps one reason why it is difficult to find points of similarity between the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and that of Johann Christian. By contrast, the piano sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Christian's much older brother, tend to invoke certain elements of the father at times, especially as regards the use of counterpoint. (C.P.E. was 36 by the time J.S. died.)

Johann Christian's music departs completely from the styles of the elder Bachs in being highly melodic. He composed in the galant style incorporating balanced phrases, emphasis on melody and accompaniment, without too much contrapuntal complexity. The galant movement was against the intricate lines of Baroque music, and instead placed importance on fluid melodies in periodic phrases. It preceded the classical style, which fused the galant aesthetics with a renewed interest in counterpoint.

J. C. Bach and the symphony

The symphonies in the Work List for J. C. Bach in the New Grove Bach Family listed ninety-one works. A little more than half of these, 48 works, are considered authentic, while the remaining 43 are doubtful.

By comparison, the composer sometimes called "the Father of the Symphony," Joseph Haydn, wrote slightly over 100 symphonies. Most of these are not fully comparable to Johann Christian Bach's symphonies, because many of Johann Christian's works in this category are closer to the Italian sinfonia than to the late classical symphony in its most fully developed state as found in the later works in this category by Haydn and Mozart.

Using comparative duration as a rough means of comparison, consider that a standard recording of one of Bach's finest symphonies, Op. 6 no. 6 in g minor, has a total time of 13 minutes and 7 seconds (as performed by Hanover Band directed by Anthony Halstead), while Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony in a typical recording (by Ádám Fischer conducting the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra) lasts 23 minutes and 43 seconds.

It is clear that the listener of J. C. Bach's symphonies should come to these works with different expectations from the ones he or she brings to those of Haydn or Mozart. Concert halls today are frequently filled with the music of Haydn, and comparatively rarely with that of J. C. Bach, which probably has less to do with their relative quality (since the music of the latter is clearly accomplished and worthy of being heard) than with their relative historical positions regarding the classical symphony. But J. C. Bach's music is more and more being recognized for its high quality and significance. The Halstead recording mentioned above is part of a complete survey of this composer's orchestral works on 22 CDs for the record label CPO, and the complete works of J. C. Bach have now been published in The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach.

Legacy

A full account of J. C. Bach’s career is given in the fourth volume of Charles Burney's History of Music.

There are two others named Johann Christian Bach in the Bach family tree, but neither were composers.

Mozart esteemed J.C. Bach's music highly and arranged three sonatas from the latter's Op. 5 into keyboard concertos.

Patrick O'Brien mentions both J.C. Bach and J. S. Bach in his novel The Ionian Mission, in which Jack Aubrey brings his friend Stephen Maturin pieces of music composed by the elder Bach which the two men play together.

Further reading

• Ernest Warburton, "Johann Christian Bach," in Christoph Wolff et al., The New Grove Bach Family. NY: Norton, 1983 (ISBN 0-393-30088-9), pp. 315ff.
• Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, trans. Clara Bell & J. A. Fuller-Maitland, NY: Dover, 1951 (reprint of 1889 ed.).
• Christoph Wolff, ed., The New Bach Reader, NY: Norton, 1998.

External links

• Article: "Gainsborough and Music" by Brian Robins
• Johann Christian Bach free scores in the Werner Icking Music Archive
• Johann Christian Bach was listed in the International Music Score Library Project

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.