carl phillip emanuel bach
Post on 07-Apr-2018
218 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/3/2019 Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach
1/3
Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach
By Chad Campbell
Music 121
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, born March 8, 1714, is considered to be one of the
founders of the Classical style, composing in the Rococo (the transitional period
between the Baroque and Classical periods) and Classical periods. He was the second of
five sons of Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach, and was a
German musician and composer.
At the age of ten, C.P.E. Bach entered the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, where his
father had been appointed cantor in 1723. He continued his education as a student of
jurisprudence, or law, at the universities of Leipzig, in 1731, and of Frankfurt, Oder, in
1735. In 1738, at the age of twenty-four, he received his degree, but immediately
abandoned any prospects of a legal career and decided to devote himself to music. A
few months later, on the recommendation of Sylvius Leopold Weiss, a German
composer and lutenist, he obtained an appointment to the service of Frederick II of
Prussia, or "Frederick the Great", the then crown prince. Upon Frederick's accession to
King in 1740, C.P.E. Bach became a member of the Kings royal orchestra. He was, at this
time, regarded as one of the foremost clavier players in Europe, and his compositions
which date from 1731, include around thirty sonatas and concert pieces for the
-
8/3/2019 Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach
2/3
harpsichord and the clavichord. His reputation was cemented by the two sets of sonatas
for which he dedicated to Frederick the Great and to the Grand Duke of Wrttemberg,
respectively. In 1746, he was promoted to the post of chamber musician, and for
twenty-two years shared the spotlight of the King with Carl Heinrich Graun, Johann
Joachim Quantz, and Johann Gottlieb Naumann, all German composers.
While in Berlin, he continued to write numerous musical pieces for solo
keyboard, including a series of character pieces the so-called "Berlin Portraits"
including La Caroline. During his residence, he wrote the Magnificat in D, which utilizes
the natural D trumpets to express a joyful, glorious and triumphal mood. The work
both pays tribute to his father, alive at the time, and points to the Viennese Classical
style according to Carol Talbeck. Yet where his father's work gives prominence to
fugue and counterpoint, Carl's expresses a lyrical style, stressing the melodic line. His
Magnificatsurges with an excited, joyful pulse through the opening movement says
Talbeck. But his main work was concentrated on the clavier, for which he composed,
nearly two hundred sonatas and other solos, including the set Mit vernderten Reprisen.
In 1768, C.P.E. Bach succeeded Georg Philipp Telemann as Kapellmeisterat
Hamburg, and began to turn his focus towards church music. From 1769 to 1788, C.P.E.
Bach added over twenty settings of the Passion, and some seventy cantatas, litanies,
motets, and other liturgical pieces. At the same time, his genius for instrumental
-
8/3/2019 Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach
3/3
composition was furthered by the career of Franz Joseph Haydn. He died in Hamburg on
December 14, 1788.
Musical culture in this time period was at a crossroads. The masters of the older
Baroque style had the technique, but the public yearned for a new and exciting style.
This is one of the reasons C.P.E. Bach is credited as a founder of the Classical style and
held in such high esteem; he understood the older forms and knew how to present
them in new and exciting ways, with an enhanced variety of the older form.
In closing, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach was one of many very important and
influential composers that lived and worked during the transition from the Baroque
period to the Classical period. He helped to facilitate a transition with his works that
exposed new variants of old forms and with his intellectual works that suggested
previously frowned upon techniques, such as his essay, True Art of Playing Keyboard
Instruments, in which he suggested regular use of the thumbs. C.P.E. Bach truly was an
innovator in the musical field of his time.
top related