Carl (or Karl) Philipp Emanuel Bach (March 8, 1714–December 14, 1788) was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach. His second name was given in honor of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of Emanuel’s father. He was one of four Bach children to become a professional musician; all four were trained in music almost entirely by their father. Born at Weimar in 1714, he entered the St. Thomas School at Leipzig, where his father had become cantor in 1723, when he was ten years old. Like his brothers, Emanuel pursued advanced studies in jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig (1731) and continued further study of law at Frankfurt (1735). In 1738, at the age of 24, he obtained his degree but turned his attention at once to music.
A few months after graduation, Bach, armed with a recommendation by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, obtained an appointment at Berlin in the service of Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great. Upon Frederick’s accession in 1740 Emanuel became a member of the royal orchestra. He was by this time one of the foremost clavier-players in Europe, and his compositions, which date from 1731, include about thirty sonatas and concert pieces for harpsichord and clavichord. During his time there, Berlin was a rich artistic environment, where Bach mixed with many accomplished musicians, including several notable former students of his father, and important literary figures, such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, with whom the composer would become close friends.
In Berlin Bach continued to write numerous pieces for solo keyboard, including a series of character pieces, the so-called “Berlin Portraits”, including La Caroline. His reputation was established by the two published 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 served the king alongside colleagues like Carl Heinrich Graun, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Franz Benda. However, the composer who most influenced Bach’s maturing style was unquestionably his father. He also drew creative inspiration from his godfather Telemann, then working in Hamburg, and from contemporaries like George Frideric Handel and Joseph Haydn. In turn, Bach’s work influenced the work of, among others, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
During his residence in Berlin Bach composed a fine setting of the Magnificat (1749); an Easter cantata (1756); several 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. Also, while in Berlin Bach placed himself in the forefront of European music with a treatise, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments). Emanuel Bach married Johanna Maria Dannemann in 1744. Only three of their children lived to adulthood – Johann Adam (1745–89), Anna Carolina Philippina (1747–1804) and Johann Sebastian “the Younger” (1748–78).
In 1768 Bach succeeded his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann as director of music at Hamburg. Upon his release from service at the court he was named court composer for Frederick’s sister, Princess Anna Amalia. Her patronage and interest in the oratorio genre may have played a role in nurturing the ambitious choral works that followed. Thus, Bach began to turn more of his energies to choral music in his new position. The job required the steady production of music for Protestant church services at the Michaeliskirche (Church of St. Michael) and elsewhere in Hamburg. The following year he produced his oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste (The Israelites in the Desert). Between 1768 and 1788 he wrote twenty-one settings of the Passion, and some seventy cantatas, litanies, motets, and other liturgical pieces. In Hamburg he also presented a number of works by contemporaries, including his father, Telemann, Graun, Handel, Haydn, Salieri and Johann David Holland.
Bach’s choral output reached its apex in two works: the double chorus Heilig (Holy, Holy, Holy) of 1776, a setting of the seraph song from the throne scene in Isaiah, and the grand cantata Die Auferstehung Jesu (The Resurrection of Jesus) of 1774-1782, which sets a poetic Gospel harmonization by the poet Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725-1798). Widespread admiration of Auferstehung led to three 1788 performances in Vienna sponsored by the Baron Gottfried van Swieten and conducted by Mozart. Bach died in Hamburg on December 14, 1788. He was buried in the Michaeliskirche (Church of St. Michael) in Hamburg.
Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father’s baroque style and the classical and romantic styles that followed it. His personal approach, an expressive and often turbulent one known as empfindsamer Stil or ‘sensitive style’, stands in deliberate contrast to the more mannered rococo style also then in vogue. Through the later half of the 18th century, the reputation of C. P. E. Bach stood very high. His name fell into neglect during the 19th century, but the revival of Bach’s works has been underway since Helmuth Koch’s rediscovery and recording of his symphonies in the 1960s, and Hugo Ruf’s recordings of his keyboard sonatas. The works of C.P.E. Bach came to be known by their Wq numbers (from Alfred Wotquenne’s 1906 catalogue). They are now also known by their H numbers, from a new catalogue by Eugene Helm (1989).
I have the following works by Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach in my collection:
Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano.
Concerto for Oboe, Strings, and Basso Continuo in EbM (#2), Wq 21, No. 165.
Concerto for Oboe, Strings, and Basso Continuo in BbM (#1), Wq 21, No. 164.
Sonata for Oboe, (Strings,) and Basso Continuo in gm, Wq 13, No. 135.
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