Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(1714 - 1788) - german composer, keyboard player, and writer on music;
second son of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach. His childhood
was spent in Cöthen and Leipzig, where his father was his
principal teacher. At Leipzig he attended the Thomasschule, and in 1731
he matriculated in law at the University of Leipzig. He switched to the
law program at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1734. In 1738
he received a summons from Frederick , then Crown Prince of
Prussia, to serve as chamber musician at his court in Rheinsberg. After
Frederick's accession to the throne in 1740, when the court moved to
Berlin, Bach had frequent contact with J. J. Quantz , Carl
Heinrich Graun and his brother Johann Gottlieb Graun , Franz
Benda and his brother Georg Benda , and literary figures such as
Ramler and Lessing. Bach published several path-breaking sets of
keyboard works during this period, including the Prussian Sonatas Wq.
48 (1743), the Württemberg Sonatas Wq. 49 (1744), and later the
Sonatas with Varied Reprises Wq. 50 (1760). Frederick, however, showed
little enthusiasm for his music. Bach was severely underpaid at court,
and at the end of the Seven Years' War (1763) he began to seek
employment elsewhere; in 1767 he was appointed Telemann 's
replacement in Hamburg. There he assumed posts as music director at
five churches and as Kantor at the Johanneum; he remained in the city
for the rest of his life. Nearly all of his sacred vocal music dates
from these years, including the oratorios Die Israeliten in der
Wüste (1769), Die letzten Leiden des Erlösers (1770), and Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu (1777-80). Also from this period are the ten symphonies Wq. 182-83 and the six sonatas, rondos, and fantasies "für Kenner und Liebhaber" Wq. 55-59, 61.Eugene Helm's thematic catalog includes nearly 900 works; central to the oeuvre is the keyboard. More than 350 works are for solo keyboard: sonatas, fantasies, rondos, variations, fugues. Also included are nearly 100 concertos or sonatinas, about fifty chamber works with obbligato keyboard, 70 trio sonatas, twenty symphonies, about 100 solo songs, and more than 100 choral works. Bach was author of the single most important treatise of the era, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1753-62).