Johann Christian Bach 6 Sinfonias Op.18, Karl Munchinger 

Wonderful anecdot, a serendipic meeting with the London Bach

Then you MUST love Mozart too. For it was this son of Bach that inspired Mozart when he was still a little boy. The man has had great influence on the genius Mozart. Most people seem to have forgotten this.

@@MMijdus Agreed. JC was one of the most influential people in Mozart's young life. Needless to say I am a huge fan of both. When the Mozart family performed for the British royal family on two occasions during their trip to England, JC Bach was Music Master to Queen Charlotte at the time. It was JC who chose the music for young Wolfgang to sight read. He chose music by his father JS Bach, Carl Abel, his own and a few other composers. The gathered audience was amazed at the young Mozart's abilities of course, as he had no problem playing whatever was put in front of him. The 8 year old Mozart even accompanied the Queen when she sang a song, and later JC put Mozart onto his lap and they played the keyboard together, each one taking 2 or 4 bars then the other taking over. Mozart's sister Nannerl wrote later that if you looked away you couldn't tell who was playing at any given moment, as there were no mistakes made. What a great musical event that must have been.

¡Qué comentarios tan cultos leo en ustedes! Saber esos detalles del encuentro entre JCBach y Mozart. Los Bach tienen estilos únicos, propios, originales... JSBach tiene su estilo inconfundible y difícil, JCBach también tiene su propio estilo, delicioso, galante y juguetón que de seguro impactó en Mozart copiándole a él y no a su padre o a otros. JC, después de JS, es mi músico favorito... luego Mozart, luego Vivaldi, luego Beethoven, etc...

Interestingly, both Mozart and JC set basically the same Lucio Silla text* - by Giovanni de Gamerra - and the comparisons are interesting. The almost 17 year-old Mozart’s version first performed 26 December 1772 in the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan, is I think an advance on his previous operas, but it is not mature Mozart. If forced to choose, I would say that the experienced 39 year old JC’s version, first performed almost two years later, on 4 November 1774 in the theatre of the Electoral Palace at Mannheim, is superior. Whilst both had some fine singers - JC’s has a better balance of parts - JC also had one of the finest orchestras in Europe and you can clearly hear this in the fantastic orchestration - there are lovely obbligato parts in some of the arias for example. JC’s Italian operas are superb and well worth investigating. I enjoy Temistocle and Endimione** in particular; I struggle a little with the very late French oddity of Amadis, which you describe well as ‘grandiose’ - it contains some fine music too. * The first and third acts are almost identical. ** Ernest Warburton, who wrote about JC Bach, and catalogued the complete works - hence the W numbers you see sometimes - when asked to nominate JC’s finest opera, chose *Endimione.*

@@elaineblackhurst1509 - Interesting insight - I seem to recall Mozart requesting a copy of the score of J.C. Bach’s 1774-1775 Lucio Silla in Mannheim in late 1777 from Abbe Vogler (a Fuxian counterpoint pupil of Padre Martini in Bologna c. 1773 with whom he grew impatient after a year (go figure) & also studied with Vallotti in Padua-and who had himself set a few scenes from Lucio Silla too) -Apparently Mozart came to detest Vogler - probably because of his unorthodox and ‘unorganis’d’ musical ‘bad taste’ as well as his ‘bad keyboard fingering technique’ to hear Mozart describe him to his father back home in Salzburg - I suspect Leopold was very aware of Vogler’s financial successes & probably encourag’d M. to ingratiate himself with him but Mozart would have none of it-even to the point of referring to Vogler as a charlatan) and develop’d a personal (was M. simply jealous of his celebrity?) antipathy for that weird but highly musically-position’d & successful theorist-composer-organ builder) -something along the lines of Vogler taunting M. after getting the Bach score back from him with phrases like, ‘Well, Mozart-did you find anything pretty in that?!’ which irked Mozart no end having been in raptures over so much of Bach’s music especially one Aria he particularly loved-I agree with you that the ‘English’ Bach’s Silla is (on the whole) a better composition than the 16-year old Mozart’s version (whose production was unfortunately ruined by the cancellation at the last minute (tonsillitis? or was it the result of a deliberate cabal ?) from the lead role Tenor who had to be replac’d by some randomly available stage-inexperienc’d choirboy -whose music had to be trimm’d down to a minimum - causing the whole opera to fail in Milan in December 1772/Jan 1773 (what a disappointment) but in the Bach version I especially love his delicious woodwind accompaniments (as you mention’d) and the soulful music he wrote for his characters in so many of the numbers in Silla (I recall also back in 1772 in Endiomione Bach us’d many of the same woodwind players that Mozart later wrote for in April of 1778 in Paris in his Sinfonia Concertante K. 297b (sadly only existing in bowlderis’d copies) like the horn player Giovanni Punto (Jan Vaclav Stich) and the oboist Friedrich Ramm & flautist Herr Wendling -which add so much depth to his rich Orchestration) and Mozart no doubt learn’d much from poring over the Bach score...maybe we should at least be grateful to Vogler for that-as for Amadis des Gaules of 1779 in Paris - it still remains a technical masterpiece as far as the music is concern’d-I have a very soft spot in my heart for it - especially the choruses-sadly written so closely to his final illness in 1780 which robb’d posterity of such an intelligently melodic opera composer - comparing Vogler’s rather disjunct stile (which seems to have affected his own pupils like Peter Winter who suffer’d from the same somewhat under-develop’d & disorganis’d thematic arrangements in his works) with that of the Mozart-J.C.Bach-Myslevecek thematic ‘more musically logical’ school is like comparing night & day...but as Cicero & Fux said ‘de gustibus non disputandum est’, I suppose !!!

@@donaldgoodell7675 Many thanks for your fascinating contribution from which I have learnt much. I do have a full recording of Amadis conducted by Helmuth Rilling, unfortunately, it is inexplicably in German* which I think is prejudicing my view of the opera; I will try again with it, but need to find a French version. * I once heard Das Rheingold in Italian but declined the opportunity to listen to the rest of the cycle in that language. Beautiful and uniquely musical as Italian is, the Ring simply sounds ridiculous in Italian, and only served to confirm my preference for opera in in its original language - even when in a language I do not understand.

OK ❤❤❤❤❤❤

Desafortunadamente, no pudo superar el genio de su padre.😢😢

Mozart got his inspiration from JC Bach. JC is the father of classical music.

Malcolm Abram Johann Christian Bach was hugely important to Mozart as has been well documented. The ‘father of classical music’ is however wildly overstating the case as his influence was otherwise quite limited, and as regards Haydn for example, he is almost completely irrelevant. JC played a small part in the developments in the concerto, symphony, sinfonia concertante, chamber music, and opera, a very small indeed when compared to Haydn and Mozart; JC contributed little to the development of sonata form, and nothing to the string quartet. Apart from his influence on Mozart, his legacy is a beautiful, but ultimately largely inconsequential corpus of music. That said, he produced unfailingly lovely music that is well worth hearing; it is a pity he is not better known.

If J. C. Bach was a huge influence on Mozart, as he obviously was, then his music can hardly be called "irrelevant".

Folderol That is categorically not what I said. I stated clearly that JC Bach’s influence *on Haydn* was ‘...almost completely irrelevant’. You have misunderstood totally what I had written originally.

@@malcolmabram2957 Not quite. I can say Mathias Georg Monn is one of the father of classical music but he lived a very short life though.

Şahan Arzruni An arguable point. Probably the most famous, admired and respected of JS Bach’s composer children in the second half of the 18th century (and beyond) was JC’s half-brother CPE. However, their music was so completely different, it is almost impossible to compare them meaningfully. Both CPE and JC could probably be correctly described as more ‘distinguished’ than the other two musical brothers WF and JCF, though they too - the former in particular sometimes - are well worth investigating if you enjoy music from this period. That said, you’re quite right that these symphonies are ‘Good stuff’; they are very fine works.

Oh, thanks for clarifying. I couldn't tell if was his cousin JC Bach, half-brother JC Bach, or son. Brilliant!

@@bringthebook6109 No problem, lots of people are not sure; this will help. Of the four musical composer sons of JS Bach: WF Bach (b.1710) and CPE Bach (b.1714) are the sons of JS Bach’s first wife Maria Barbara who died in 1720. JCF Bach (b.1732) and JC Bach (b.1735) are the sons of JS Bach’s second wife Anna Magdalena who died in 1750.

One of my favorite no matter what others say.his music is beautiful.it shows his personality and gift. I believe he never really cared about development of music as much as the beauty of it.some people care about the educational and so called intellectual side.i don't and I don't believe jc did either. The so called intellectuals like Haydn well that's their choice.mine is jc Bach because his music is so much more beautiful than Haydn or beethoven and that's a fact.

@@manuelalmendarez2232 It is nice you have such a healthy passion for his music-there is so much to love, as Mozart did! No need to denigrate Haydn or Beethoven; if they are not to your taste, so be it. But they were masters notwithstanding. If you have not already, check out the music of his elder brother/mentor, C.P.E. Bach. He is a master of beauty and intellect too. As for J.C only interested in 'beauty'; do not forget, most of what he did was for public consumption and income-as with most composers of his time. Sadly, when his music became 'out of date' in his later years, he was impoverished. Acclaim of the masses can be fickle...

No doubt, at the time Mozart was in London he was close with JC and was present when Adriano in Siria premiered.

‘What a sad loss for the World of Musick’ M. wrote to Leopold from Vienna when he later heard the shocking news that ‘John’ Bach had died on 1 Jan 1782...he was only 46 years old - and we can only echo Mozart’s sentiments when we pause to think what other operatic & instrumental music would have been produced had he liv’d-which goes more than double for the great Mozart himself !!!

@@donaldgoodell7675 Just to be picky, in the letter to his father of 10 April 1782, Mozart referred to JC as ‘the English Bach’.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 - probably to distinguish between Sebastian & Carl Phillip Emmanuel & Wilhelm Friedmann & Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst & Johann Christof Friedrich & Johann Michael Bach & Johann Bernhard Bach & so many other Bach’s !!! LOL !!!

@@donaldgoodell7675 You have an interest and knowledge of the period that makes for interesting reading, but it’s important to be factually disciplined!

You absolutely cannot hear anything of Haydn here; JC Bach and Haydn come from totally different musical planets; the only meaningful link to JC Bach is Mozart (and regarding Haydn, CPE Bach).

schitterende uitvoering! Ik heb er bijzonder van genoten! Marry Schot-Ceton

He taught Mozart who was 8 for some months in London.

@@starnafin yes I know Mozart played piano sitting on his knees.

@@starnafin One of these symphonies (the last one, if I correctly remember) is an operatic transcription.

The keyboard works of the half-brothers CPE and JC Bach sit pretty much at the North and South Poles of Classical piano sonatas!

KPE seems to precede F.J. Haydn while JCB seems to precede W.A. Mozart. Beethoven seems to have flowed from the KPE to FJH path. Though there is some early music of Beethoven that suggests JCB influence.

@@davidmcmurray9933 You’re quite right, and a neat summary - up to the last sentence which I really think is unsustainable. I have seen occasional references on RU-vid to some imagined links between the final movement of JC Bach’s c minor sonata Opus 17 No 2 and Beethoven’s f minor sonata Opus 2 No 1, but that is all they are - imagined. I know both works well - I play them adequately - but I doubt if Beethoven even knew JC’s Opus 17. (PS. It’s normal to refer to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach as CPE, rather than KPE; it’s the correct form of his name, how he wrote it, and how his name appears on the first editions of the ‘Versuch’. There are more than enough Bachs to confuse some RU-vid viewers as is evident from many comments, so muddying the waters further by inventing new ones is not helpful). (PPS. PDQ Bach is not part of the family).

Pas seulement a 16' 50'', mais aussi a 27'50'', et 53'33''. I can imagine he escaped to Italy from his family and to produce his own style with some Mediteranean flavor.

The three double orchestra symphonies - Opus 18 Nos 1, 3, and 5, are all very fine, as are the two single orchestra symphonies Nos 2, and 4. The odd one out is Opus 18 No 6 which was put together by the publisher to complete the set from bits from JC’s Paris opera Amadis de Gaule (1778), there is some fine music, but as a symphony, it is much less successful.

Not a bit! Karl Münchinger (1915-1990) was the best German conductor for this kind of music.

@@jeanghika7653 Absolutely not.

Zinman's is good, but often too quick, even hurried, and rushing during the longer notes, especially in the slower movements, truly a pity. Munchinger's is much more stable, quiet, transparant and dignified.

Luis B:hay muchos,ya vez que johann sebastian bach tuvo muchos hijos,todos o casi todos fueron músicos,pero todos ellos eran luteranos y este bach se hizo católico,por ese motivo de apodaban el bach católico.

Luis B:¿como se llamaban?

J.C Bach era todo lo contrario a su padre. Era católico, componía en piano (J.S Bach nunca le vió futuro al piano), salió de Alemania, etc. Toda la familia Bach está llena de genios.

Antonio Vivaldi :y creó el estilo clásico.

No lo creo como tal

JC and Gainsborough, along with Carl Abel, were best friends and very close drinking buddies. I just finished reading the life story of JC Bach by author Heinz Gartner and they had a great time together, although all three of them were exceptionally heavy drinkers, and on more than one occasion Gainsborough was found in a drunken stupor on the street in front of Bach and Abel's house ( they lived together for a period just a few blocks away from the concert hall they often performed at and their house became a musical center and party place.) But by all accounts JC, or John as he was known in London, was a popular person. As you said, unlike his dad and brother CPE who were both known for having somewhat difficult personalities, JC was known as a kind hearted and friendly person.

You are quite right; JC seems to have forgotten almost everything he was taught by his father and half-brother CPE, and replaced it with a totally new style of music picked up in Italy between 1756 and 1762. In 1762, he moved to England and spent the rest of his life there - apart from two short trips to Mannheim and one to Paris - and his Italian-style music was only very slightly adapted to London tastes where he remained popular throughout his life. These magnificent symphonies - or at least the first five* - were played in London for many years after his death. * Opus 18 No 6 is a odd arrangement of random bits of JC’s French opera Amadis de Gaule (1778) and was compiled by the publisher to complete a set of six. Opus 18 Nos 1 to 5 are magnificent, Opus 18 No 6 is less impressive, and something of a pasticcio.

Richard Harrity You probably need to add a fourth name - JS Bach’s fifth son, Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-1795) to that list before anyone can discuss it. JCF was an outstanding keyboard player and was appointed harpsichordist at the Buckeburg court in 1750 where he became Konzertmeister in 1759. Apart from a trip to see his half-brother JC in London in 1778 - where he picked up something of JC’s fashionable style - JCF remained at Buckeburg until his death in 1795. JCF’s style is somewhat Italian but with traces of the old baroque mingled with the newer galante; his late B flat symphony seems to show that he was aware of the symphonies of certainly Haydn, and maybe some others in musical centres like Vienna such as Dittersdorf. One problem in assessing JCF properly is that most of his scores and manuscripts were moved to Berlin in 1917 but then destroyed at the end of WW2; what survived is certainly worth investigating by anyone interested in music of the period - there is nothing he wrote not worthy of his name apart from some rather trite keyboard works I have come across which do not show JCFat his best. One final point; he produced a son - Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst, who he had taught, much in the manner his father had taught him, who went on to be music director to Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. In terms of your talent list; it is extremely difficult to list the four brothers/half-brothers as they are so very different, with very unique musical personalities. Perhaps I’ll wait until you have placed JCF in your own ranking before commenting further.

Richard Harrity, with the respect that you merit, I disagree with your ranking, which like all ranking is necessarily subjective, even when based on some criterion or other. I describe myself as an amateur with a VAST listening experience (decades of radio, concerts, online websites, vinyl, and a collection of over 400 CDs of classical music) and a certain amount of background reading. My own position is also subjective, and here it is: Much of the music of WF and CPE Bach makes me jumpy. The contrasts in dynamics and other areas (e. g., melodic lines that seem to have no reason for following the preceding themes) are too strong and sudden for me. After listening for a short while, I feel agitated and dissatisfied. This never happens with Johann Christian's music. It is similar to Mozart's in its supreme appropriateness, combining the utmost natural grace of melody, harmony, orchestration, dynamics and tempos with irresistible feeling and coherence. And with an inexhaustible variety that always leaves the listener wanting more. I agree with Gérard Begni above [2 years ago (edited)]. Among the contemporaries of Haydn and precursors of Mozart, JC Bach is unsurpassed. And he was a very decent fellow, too. Just sayin'....

There are no parents at all. The Classical style emerged over a number of years from about 1740, in the hands of a number of composers in different places: Sammartini, Brioschi (Milan), Johann Stamitz, Holzbauer, Richter, Fils (Mannheim), Wagenseil, Monn (Vienna), Et al, Et cetera. CPE Bach, and his half-brother JC, and and others, contributed to the development of the symphony - not its birth - as well. Trying to attribute parents, or believing in a ‘Father of the Symphony’, ‘Father of the Classical Style’, or any such thing, is like believing in Father Christmas/Santa Claus, La Befana, the tooth fairy, goblins and giants, or any other such fairy tales intended for little children - *none* of them exist except as part of a childish make-believe fantasy world.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 Your opinion... My opinion. Different, but respectable. It wasn't easy to release the Baroque style. It happened to be JC and CPE achievement. Who else had the incredible honour of being JSB sons?

@@alvarito45 What I have suggested is factually very accurate, it is not opinion, and it is not a controversial explanation. CPE and JC - in very different ways - both contributed to the development of the Classical style - though CPE’s was limited to certain areas - and is often overstated - and JC’s came well after the pioneering work of many others. Note: in the1740’s and 1750’s when the composers I listed were developing the new music, JC was a boy being taught by his father, then from 1750, by his half-brother CPE, then from 1756 by Padre Martini in Bologna. It was only from moving to London in 1762, that JC really had any influence at all - particularly on, but only really on Mozart - by which time, the Classical style was well established. JC therefore clearly cannot be labelled a parent, and neither is this an opinion, nor anything for debate - it is clear fact. Just to be clear; I am not denying the influence of CPE and/or JC, simply questioning the position you are affording them as ‘parents’ of the Classical style, which in the case of JC in particular, because of the chronology, is simply not sustainable.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 - you’re right -as usual-Elaine The emergence of the so -call’d Sammartini Stile Galante must also be seen in the context of the Industrial Revolution (1730-1830) when the socall’d middle-class Bourgeoisie began growing exponentially & music veer’d from the Palace to the Salon to the Theatres & Concert Halls - it must have been disconcerting for composers to have to deal with so many musical changes which even Mozart complain’d to his father in 1781 (‘I can’t keep up with so many changes in the Gusto of Musical Stile at the moment among the Masses...’) -we have to thank the sweeping innovations of not only Sammartini & Galuppi & Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Gluck & Porpora - but including also such movers & shakers as Sacchini & Gasparini & Uttini & Bertoni & Fischietti & Traetta & Anfossi & Guigelmi & Insanguine & Tritto & Piccinni & Sarti & Gossec & Hasse & Carl Heinrich Graun & Giuseppe Bonno & Vento & Myslevecek & Paisiello & de Majo & Gretry & Boccherini etal. before we move on to the larger more influential figures such as Mozart, Salieri & Joseph Haydn - so many individual contributing ‘fathers’ of the great ‘classical period’ - & J.C. Bach was snack right in the middle of it all !!

@@donaldgoodell7675 Can’t argue with that - a useful corrective to those who try to attribute to a single composer the responsibility for creating - often parenting - the Classical style. Great post.

Olivier Goossens Milanese Bach ? JC was organist in Milan Cathedral from 1760 until 1762 so for two years was indeed known as the ‘Milanese Bach’. In 1762 he moved to London and where he spent the rest of his life; he became known as the ‘English Bach’, and indeed he was referred to as such by Mozart in a letter of 1782. These symphonies were published in 1782, so the reference to ‘...the Milanese Bach’ is as misleading as it is irrelevant; these works were written in London, for English audiences, and by the ‘English Bach’.

A lot more people think of him as the London Bach than the Milanese Bach!

@@davebarclay4429 You’re right, the ‘Milanese Bach’ was a silly comment typical of a type common on RU-vid where commentators like to show off scraps of random knowledge. Just for info, Mozart referred to JC as ‘…the English Bach’ when he mentioned JC’s death in a letter to his father 10 April 1782.

He was significantly older than Mozart (1735-1782).

Stefan Stamenic JC as is well-known, was a major influence on the young Mozart. I have no idea what all this talk about ‘...the musical matrix’ means. JC is totally irrelevant to, and had zero influence or impact on Haydn.

"Copied" in what way? Just asking....

Juan Vélez In 1770, Mozart arranged JC Bach’s piano sonatas Opus 5 No’s 2, 3, and 4 as piano concertos (K107). I wonder if that is to what Lar M was referring ? Or perhaps he means *copied out* ? Mozart certainly copied out a symphony by JC’s London colleague Carl Friedrich Abel (‘Mozart’ Symphony 3 in E flat K18), which because an old extant copy was in Mozart’s handwriting, it was long thought to be by the young Mozart, and included in the complete symphonies.

@@juanvelez8564 For some of his homework and also for reference to some of his early symphonies.

No idea what you are talking about but if JS Bach hadn't existed the entire direction of western music would have been different. That cannot truly be said of JC Bach.

@@davebarclay4429 I enjoy Christian Bach more....but yes, you are right.