Biography
Enthusiasts regard Wilhelm Friedemann Bach as perhaps the most innovative and captivating among the musical offspring of Johann Sebastian Bach. He produced works for modest ensembles and the period orchestra, as well as for organ and piano. Although his output generally belongs to the transitional span between Baroque and Classical idioms, his outlook most resembles that of J.S. Bach among the sons, blending Baroque harmonic refinement with a markedly personal voice. Viewed chiefly as a skilled musician rather than a prodigiously gifted composer, history has allowed him to recede behind his brothers Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian.
As the eldest son of J.S. Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann received instruction in composition and organ from his father, whose Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach records portions of the teaching material. J.S. Bach also arranged violin study with J.G. Graun and ensured that Wilhelm Friedemann’s academic distinctions at Leipzig’s Thomasschule and the University of Leipzig, where he pursued philosophy, law, and mathematics, never displaced musical training. After completing his education he served briefly as his father’s musical assistant. At twenty-three he left home for a part-time post as organist at Dresden’s Sophienkirche, a role that left room for further mathematical work and for composing operas and ballets intended for the local Court. In 1746 he moved to the more substantial position of organist at Hallé’s Liebfrauenkirche, where his duties extended to directing orchestral concerts in the city’s three principal churches. He gained renown for his brilliant organ improvisations and is widely acknowledged as the last great German Baroque organist.
Friction developed from his interest in Enlightenment thought and his refusal to accommodate the town’s rigidly pious rulers. Resenting their constraints, he repeatedly sought posts elsewhere, further antagonizing the municipal authorities. In 1751 he married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi. When the Seven Years’ War reached Hallé in 1756 the city lay open, and Bach’s household endured depredations from successive armies. Despite wartime inflation the town fathers denied his request for a salary increase in 1761. An appointment as Kapellmeister in Darmstadt arrived in 1762 and seemed promising, yet Bach postponed his departure and forfeited the post. He finally abandoned his Hallé duties in 1764 and attempted to support himself as a teacher in the town. His circumstances thereafter remained precarious, often worsened by his own missteps in seeking new employment. After a period in Braunschweig he settled in Berlin in the mid-1770s and remained there for the rest of his life. He died in poverty in 1784 from a pulmonary ailment.
Wilhelm Friedemann earned lasting hostility from generations of music historians by allowing many of his father’s manuscripts, once in his care, to disappear. He treated his own works with comparable disregard, and a substantial portion is likewise lost. Nevertheless his polonaises for piano and his orchestral music remain unquestionably significant, and his idiosyncratic, highly individual style has attracted a devoted following.
As the eldest son of J.S. Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann received instruction in composition and organ from his father, whose Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach records portions of the teaching material. J.S. Bach also arranged violin study with J.G. Graun and ensured that Wilhelm Friedemann’s academic distinctions at Leipzig’s Thomasschule and the University of Leipzig, where he pursued philosophy, law, and mathematics, never displaced musical training. After completing his education he served briefly as his father’s musical assistant. At twenty-three he left home for a part-time post as organist at Dresden’s Sophienkirche, a role that left room for further mathematical work and for composing operas and ballets intended for the local Court. In 1746 he moved to the more substantial position of organist at Hallé’s Liebfrauenkirche, where his duties extended to directing orchestral concerts in the city’s three principal churches. He gained renown for his brilliant organ improvisations and is widely acknowledged as the last great German Baroque organist.
Friction developed from his interest in Enlightenment thought and his refusal to accommodate the town’s rigidly pious rulers. Resenting their constraints, he repeatedly sought posts elsewhere, further antagonizing the municipal authorities. In 1751 he married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi. When the Seven Years’ War reached Hallé in 1756 the city lay open, and Bach’s household endured depredations from successive armies. Despite wartime inflation the town fathers denied his request for a salary increase in 1761. An appointment as Kapellmeister in Darmstadt arrived in 1762 and seemed promising, yet Bach postponed his departure and forfeited the post. He finally abandoned his Hallé duties in 1764 and attempted to support himself as a teacher in the town. His circumstances thereafter remained precarious, often worsened by his own missteps in seeking new employment. After a period in Braunschweig he settled in Berlin in the mid-1770s and remained there for the rest of his life. He died in poverty in 1784 from a pulmonary ailment.
Wilhelm Friedemann earned lasting hostility from generations of music historians by allowing many of his father’s manuscripts, once in his care, to disappear. He treated his own works with comparable disregard, and a substantial portion is likewise lost. Nevertheless his polonaises for piano and his orchestral music remain unquestionably significant, and his idiosyncratic, highly individual style has attracted a devoted following.