The Other Bach

Quick—answer this question: what composer was Mozart talking about when he said, “he is the father, we are the children.”

Answer—Bach.

But not Johann Sebastian Bach, but rather his fifth child, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach.

I know this thanks to YouTube; in one of the few pleasant comments, a listener adduced the quote. And if Wikipedia can be trusted, it’s true.

So why don’t we know more about him?

Well, first—can you imagine being Bach’s son? Talk about shoes….

Second, composers come into and out of fashion. CPE Bach was fashionable in the late 18^th century but fell out of favor in the mid-19^th century, with Schumann remarking, “as a creative musician he remained very far behind his father.”

See what I mean about shoes?

Still, Beethoven spoke well of him, and both Mendelssohn and Carl Maria von Weber were influenced by him.

And the music? It’s influenced by a German philosophical movement of the late 18^th century, Sturm und Drang. So were Haydn and Mozart, to some degree, but CPE Bach really goes all out.

Sturm und Drang was all about emotional extremes—so Bach never seems in the mid-stream—he’s either musically putting the razor to his wrist, or swinging from the chandelier while toasting you with Champagne. In fact, he frequently stops in the middle of musical hilarity and sticks something completely unexpected in.

The cembalo concerti below are a good example….   

  

By the way—the cembalo was simply another word for the harpsichord, not, as I thought before I looked it up just now, a separate keyboard instrument.

Bach was born in 1714 in Weimar, and was christened Carl Phillip after Georg Phillip Telemann, his godfather. His father was his primary influence, and though CPE Bach studied law, he never practiced. Instead, like his brothers, he became a professional musician, and eventually ended up as a court musician for Frederick the Great in Berlin. He was also one of the best keyboard players of the time. The Magnificat was written in 1749, during his time in Berlin. 

By the way, it was also in Berlin that CPE Bach wrote an essay on entitled “An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.” In it, he advocated using the thumbs—apparently the tradition was not to.  He also devoted the first half of the tract to explaining ornamentation—how to embellish a simple musical theme with trills, turns, and other musical devices.

In 1768, CPE Bach succeeded his godfather in the position of director of music in Hamburg, and later would be court composer for Princess Anna Amalia, Frederick’s sister. And there he began to write an oratorio that would foresee Mendelssohn’s Elijah. He also wrote a cantata, The Resurrection of Jesus, which Mozart would conduct. Check it out below:    

Lastly, as a cellist, I have to end with the work that started me off, 35 years ago, loving Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach—the A major cello concerto, here played superbly by Hidemi Suzuki. Oh, and by the way, it’s as fun to play this as it is to listen to….