Biography
Johann Christian Bach, youngest child of Johann Sebastian Bach, earned widespread renown during his lifetime through numerous operas distinguished by melodic richness and fresh approaches to orchestration. A leading proponent of the galant manner, his orchestral output—above all the double-orchestra overtures and the series of sinfonia concertante—won enthusiastic reception from concertgoers and supplied fresh models for later figures including Mozart. Often identified as the “London Bach” to separate him from his elder half-brother, the “Berlin Bach” Carl Philipp Emanuel, he helped establish the Bach-Abel concert series and took part in the Vauxhall recitals, early equivalents of today’s public concerts that presented recent compositions and earned him recognition as a keyboard performer.
Johann Sebastian is believed to have provided the boy with thorough musical grounding before his death, which occurred when Johann Christian was fourteen. The youth was subsequently dispatched to Berlin to reside and train under the already prominent Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. At nineteen Johann Christian traveled to Italy, where instruction from Padre Martini led him to compose sacred works, embrace Catholicism, and adopt the galant idiom. In 1760 he was appointed one of two organists at Milan Cathedral; more significantly, he received a commission for the opera Artaserse to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. That success initiated a trio of well-received opere serie and prompted an invitation to compose for London’s newly opened King’s Theatre in Haymarket. After settling in London in 1762, his first local production, Orione, reached the stage on 19 February 1763. It received strong acclaim and became a sensation when King George III and Queen Charlotte attended a second performance the following evening. The Queen appointed him her household musician and instructor for herself and her children, while also retaining him as an impromptu accompanist whenever the King wished to play the flute. He dedicated the Six Harpsichord Concertos, Op. 1 (1763) to her.
During the Mozart family’s London visit in 1764 he formed a close association with the gifted young Wolfgang, who later acknowledged the debt by basing several of his own piano concertos on movements from Bach’s keyboard sonatas. Bach likewise cultivated friendships with the musician and historian Charles Burney and the painter Thomas Gainsborough, whose portrait remains the best-known likeness of the composer. He began sharing quarters with the composer and viola da gamba player Carl Friedrich Abel; together they presented the Bach-Abel concerts, which ran from 1764 to 1782 and gave Bach the opportunity to introduce numerous chamber works for mixed strings, woodwinds, and keyboard, as well as concertos and symphonies. In autumn 1766 he met soprano Cecilia Grassi, whom he would later wed.
Bach made musical history in 1768 by delivering the first solo piano recital heard in London, a benefit concert for oboist J.C. Fisher. His Six Sonatas, Op. 5, issued in 1766, were the earliest publications to list the pianoforte as the preferred instrument over the harpsichord. Although he maintained publishing arrangements in both London and Paris, he brought suit in 1774 against Longman, Lukey & Co. for issuing unauthorized editions of his music; the favorable verdict established that musical scores were protected under copyright law. He persisted in writing operas for London and continental theaters as well as vocal pieces for Vauxhall. The first of two operas commissioned by Elector Palatine Carl Theodor, Temistocle (1772) again to a Metastasio libretto, is distinguished by vocal and instrumental writing of exceptional virtuosity. That same year his wife participated in the premiere of his serenata Endimione at the King’s Theatre. His final Italian opera, La Clemenza di Scipione, was staged at the King’s Theatre on 4 April 1778. Amadis de Gaule (1779), his sole French opera and most ambitious undertaking, set a diffuse tragédie lyrique by Philippe Quinault drawn from medieval romance rather than classical myth; it proved unsuccessful. About the same period the Bach-Abel concerts lost their following, and Bach learned that his steward had misappropriated nearly all his resources. He died in 1782 at age forty-six, heavily in debt. Queen Charlotte covered the immediate costs of the estate and arranged a lifetime pension for his widow.
Johann Sebastian is believed to have provided the boy with thorough musical grounding before his death, which occurred when Johann Christian was fourteen. The youth was subsequently dispatched to Berlin to reside and train under the already prominent Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. At nineteen Johann Christian traveled to Italy, where instruction from Padre Martini led him to compose sacred works, embrace Catholicism, and adopt the galant idiom. In 1760 he was appointed one of two organists at Milan Cathedral; more significantly, he received a commission for the opera Artaserse to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. That success initiated a trio of well-received opere serie and prompted an invitation to compose for London’s newly opened King’s Theatre in Haymarket. After settling in London in 1762, his first local production, Orione, reached the stage on 19 February 1763. It received strong acclaim and became a sensation when King George III and Queen Charlotte attended a second performance the following evening. The Queen appointed him her household musician and instructor for herself and her children, while also retaining him as an impromptu accompanist whenever the King wished to play the flute. He dedicated the Six Harpsichord Concertos, Op. 1 (1763) to her.
During the Mozart family’s London visit in 1764 he formed a close association with the gifted young Wolfgang, who later acknowledged the debt by basing several of his own piano concertos on movements from Bach’s keyboard sonatas. Bach likewise cultivated friendships with the musician and historian Charles Burney and the painter Thomas Gainsborough, whose portrait remains the best-known likeness of the composer. He began sharing quarters with the composer and viola da gamba player Carl Friedrich Abel; together they presented the Bach-Abel concerts, which ran from 1764 to 1782 and gave Bach the opportunity to introduce numerous chamber works for mixed strings, woodwinds, and keyboard, as well as concertos and symphonies. In autumn 1766 he met soprano Cecilia Grassi, whom he would later wed.
Bach made musical history in 1768 by delivering the first solo piano recital heard in London, a benefit concert for oboist J.C. Fisher. His Six Sonatas, Op. 5, issued in 1766, were the earliest publications to list the pianoforte as the preferred instrument over the harpsichord. Although he maintained publishing arrangements in both London and Paris, he brought suit in 1774 against Longman, Lukey & Co. for issuing unauthorized editions of his music; the favorable verdict established that musical scores were protected under copyright law. He persisted in writing operas for London and continental theaters as well as vocal pieces for Vauxhall. The first of two operas commissioned by Elector Palatine Carl Theodor, Temistocle (1772) again to a Metastasio libretto, is distinguished by vocal and instrumental writing of exceptional virtuosity. That same year his wife participated in the premiere of his serenata Endimione at the King’s Theatre. His final Italian opera, La Clemenza di Scipione, was staged at the King’s Theatre on 4 April 1778. Amadis de Gaule (1779), his sole French opera and most ambitious undertaking, set a diffuse tragédie lyrique by Philippe Quinault drawn from medieval romance rather than classical myth; it proved unsuccessful. About the same period the Bach-Abel concerts lost their following, and Bach learned that his steward had misappropriated nearly all his resources. He died in 1782 at age forty-six, heavily in debt. Queen Charlotte covered the immediate costs of the estate and arranged a lifetime pension for his widow.
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