Classification · German and Austrian area
1714 – 1788
Weimar - Hamburg
Review
The second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach, was for almost thirty years a carnation of Federico the Great of Prussia in Berlin and Potsdam. In 1768 he succeeded his best man Telemann as musical director of the churches of Hamburg, where he spent the rest of his life.
His music, full of unexpected turns and emotional contrasts, is the highest example of the Empfindsamkeit. His treatise on the art of playing the keyboard was the reference of an entire generation: Haydn studied it in depth and Mozart was attributed the phrase that he was «the father, and we the children».
Main works
- Prussian Sonatas Wq 48 (1742)
- Württemberg Wq 49 (1744)
- Magnificat Wq 215 (1749)
- Test on the true art of playing the keyboard (1753-1762)
- Concert for cello in major Wq 172
- Hamburg synphonies Wq 182 (1773)
- Sonatas «für Kenner und Liebhaber» (1779-1787)
- Phantom in a sustained f minor Wq 67 (1787)
