Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Admirers of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach consider him in many ways the most original and interesting of the composer-sons of the great Johann Sebastian. Bach composed for small groups and the orchestra of his day, in addition to organ and piano. While his music fell generally into the transitional period between the Baroque and Classical eras, he is closest in temperament to J.S. Bach of all the sons, with his music lying in the Baroque tradition of harmonic elegance, but with a distinctive and personal style. Yet, more an able musician than an unusually gifted one, posterity has left Wilhelm Friedemann overshadowed by his brothers, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian. Wilhelm Friedemann was the eldest son of J.S. Bach. Naturally, he was taught composition and organ by his father, whose Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach details some of the music used in Wilhelm Friedemann's lessons. The elder Bach also sent him to study violin with J.G. Graun and saw to it that Wilhelm Friedemann's great successes in general education at Leipzig's Thomasschule and the University of Leipzig (where he studied philosophy, law, and mathematics) did not interfere with his music. After graduation Wilhelm Friedemann worked as a musical assistant for his father. He left home at the age of 23 to become organist of the Sophienkirche in Dresden. This was a part-time position, allowing him time for more math studies and composition of operas and ballets for the local Court. In 1746, he became the organist at the Liebfrauenkirche in Hallé, a better position involving not only playing organ in that church, but also organizing orchestral performances in the city's three main churches. He became known for his brilliant organ improvisations and is generally listed as the last great German Baroque organist. He ran into trouble due to his interests in modern enlightenment philosophy and his inability to take seriously the very pious style of the town's rulers. Chafing at their attempts to restrict him, he applied for various jobs elsewhere as they opened, further irritating the town fathers. In 1751 he married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi. In 1756, with the coming of the Seven Years' War, Hallé became an open city and Bach and his family suffered depredations from the various armies that went through. Despite inflation, the town fathers turned down his request for a raise in 1761. In 1762, he received an appointment as Kapellmeister in Darmstadt, seemingly a congenial position, but Bach delayed leaving Hallé and lost the job. He finally walked off the job in Hallé in 1764, setting himself up as a teacher in the town. He lived precariously after that, often sabotaging himself in attempts to get new jobs. After a period in Braunschweig, he finally settled in Berlin in the mid-1770s, where he spent the rest of his life. He died in poverty in 1784 from a pulmonary disease. Wilhelm Friedemann earned the undying enmity of generations of music historians by losing many of the manuscripts of his father that had come into his care. He treated his own music as carelessly, and much of it is also lost. Nevertheless, Bach's polonaises for piano and his orchestral music are unquestionably important, and his quirky, highly individual style has won him something of a cult following.
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