Johann Christian Bach was born on 5 September 1735, the eighteenth child of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven sons. Johann Sebastian was nearly 50 at the time of his birth, and he supervised his son’s early musical education.

Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian showed great musical aptitude, and he helped to prepare music manuscripts on his father’s behalf. It has been suggested that Christian was a favorite child of Sebastian, and he did inherit three of his father’s harpsichords. After the death of his father, Christian moved to Berlin and studied with his half-brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Christian, however, was not content to become a Kapellmeister in the Bach tradition, and in the summer of 1755 left for Italy. Showcasing his versatility as a composer, he was the only Bach son who wrote Italian operas. The success of his operas attracted the attention of the management of the King’s Theater in London, who commissioned two works for the 1762/3 Season.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Overture in French Style in B minor, BWV 831

Johann Christian, who subsequently became known as John Bach, found fame, success, and financial stability in London, where he rubbed shoulders with the royal family, aristocrats, musicians, and painters. He gave music lessons to the queen and her children, organised chamber concerts, directed the queen’s band and accompanied the flute-playing king. His operas were immediately successful and financially profitable, and he lived comfortably in Soho and Mayfair, and later in Richmond and Paddington. He took advantage of the flourishing music trade and published a whole series of works, including a number of highly influential piano concertos. He met and entertained Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and he became the leading composer and musician in London.

J.C.Bach Sonatas

Christian embarked on a number of highly successful concert tours to the continent, but his final years show a decline in fortunes and health. Defrauded by a business partner, Johann Christian died on 1 January 1782 and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard one week later. Mozart describes Bach’s passing as “a loss to the musical world.”

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