BACH, Carl Philipp Emanuel  (1714-1788)

HISTORY                         Composers

Makers

Violin History & Timeline

PERFORMERS

Violin

Viola

Cello

Bass 

Gamba, etc. 

The Roots of Famous Violinists

TEACHERS

Violin

Viola

Cello

Bass   

DEALERS                        

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel (the “Berlin” or “Hamburg” Bach), 3rd (and 2nd surviving) son of Johann Sebastian; b. Weimar, March 8,1714; d. Hamburg, Dec. 14, 1788. He was educated under his father’s tuition at the Thomasschule in Leipzig; then studied jurisprudence at the Univ. of Leipzig and at the Univ. of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. Turning to music as his chief vocation, he went to Berlin in 1738; in 1740 he was confirmed as chamber musician to Frederick the Great of Prussia. In that capacity he arranged his father’s visit to Potsdam. In March 1768 he assumed the post of cantor at the Johanneum (the Lateinschule) in Hamburg, and also served as music director for the 5 major churches. He held these posts until his death. Abandoning the strict polyphonic style of composition of his great father, he became an adept of the new school of piano writing, a master of “Empfindsamkeit” (“intimate expressiveness”), the North Gi~rman counterpart of the French Rococo. His Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier Zn spielen . . . (2 parts, 1753—62; re-edited by Schelling in 1857; new, but incomplete, ed. by W. Niemann, 1906) became a very influential work which yielded much authentic information about musical practices of the 2nd half of the 18th century. An Eng. tr. of the Versach . . ., entitled Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, was publ. by W. Mitchell (N.Y., 1949). His autobiography was reprinted by W. Kahl in Selbstbiographien deutscher Masiker des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1948); an Eng. tr. was made by W. Newman, “Emanuel Bach’s Autobiography,” Musical Quarterly (April 1965). His compositions are voluminous (see E. Helm, Thematic Catalog of the Works of C.P.E. B. ~New Haven, 1989]).