Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
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Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, in a portrait by Wilhelm Weitsch |
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (
November 22,
1710 –
July 1,
1784) was the eldest, and by common repute the most gifted son, of
Johann Sebastian Bach; a famous organist, a famous improvisor, and a complete master of
counterpoint.
Unlike the rest of the family, he was a man of idle and dissolute habits, whose career was little more than a series of wasted opportunities.Born in
Weimar and educated at
Leipzig, he was appointed in
1733 organist of St. Sophia's Church at
Dresden, and in
1746 became organist of the Liebfrauenkirche at
Halle; his father's influence was enough to secure him the latter position without the usual trial performance.
With his father's death in
1750, the stabilizing influence in Friedemann's life seems to have disappeared, and he lived an unhappy life in Halle, from which he frequently traveled to seek other employment. In
1762, he was offered the post of Kapellmeister to the court of
Darmstadt, but for some reason he did not accept the position. Two years later, in
1764, he walked off the job in Halle, ending his employment there and indeed his formal employment anywhere. Thenceforward he led a wandering life until, on the 1st of July
1784, he died in great poverty at
Berlin, aged 74.
His compositions, very few of which were printed, include many church
cantatas and instrumental works, of which the most notable are the
fugues,
polonaises and
fantasias for
clavier, and an interesting
sextet for strings,
clarinet and
horns. Several of his manuscripts are preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin; and a complete list of his works, so far as they are known, may be found in
Eitner's Quellen Lexikon.
A commonly-used
numbering system is that of Martin Falck, who published a catalog of Friedemann's music in
1913. For example, F. 12 stands for the celebrated "Twelve Polonaises" that were completed by
1765.
Additionally, Friedemann along with his brother
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach provided important information to
Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the first biographer of Johann Sebastian Bach. The biographical information supplied by Friedemann and Emanuel was utilized in the biography of Sebastian that Forkel published in
1802. However, unlike Emanuel, Friedemann was an exceedingly poor custodian of Sebastian's music, much of which he, like Emanuel, inherited on their father's death. Not only did a good deal of Friedemann's share of this music disappear unaccountably, but in some cases he is known to have claimed credit for music written by his father (such as the Organ Concerto,
BWV 596; because Friedemann wrote his own name on Sebastian's autograph score, it was mistakenly attributed to Friedemann when it was first published in the
19th century).
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is not to be confused with
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, his nephew, also a composer.
*Eugene Helm, "Wilhelm Friedemann Bach," in Christoph Wolff et. al.,
The New Grove Bach Family. NY: Norton, 1983 (ISBN 0393300889), pp. 238-50.
*
