Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (22 November 1710 – 1 July 1784), the second child and eldest son

of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer.
Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist, improviser and composer, his income and
employment were unstable and he died in poverty.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach sketch.png

Sketch of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Born

22 November 1710

Weimar

Died

1 July 1784 (aged 73)

Berlin

Biography

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Wilhelm Friedemann (hereafter Friedemann) was born in Weimar, where his father was
employed as organist and chamber musician to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. In July 1720, when
Friedemann was nine, his mother Maria Barbara Bach died suddenly; Johann Sebastian Bach
remarried in December 1721. J. S. Bach supervised Friedemann's musical education and career
with great attention. The graded course of keyboard studies and composition that J. S. Bach
provided is documented in the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (modern spelling:
Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach), with entries by both father and son. This
education also included (parts of) the French Suites, (Two-Part) Inventions, (Three-Part) Sinfonias
(popularly known as "Inventions"), the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the six Trio
Sonatas for organ. At the age of 16 he went to Merseburg to learn the violin with his teacher
Johann Gottlieb Graun.

In addition to his musical training, Friedemann received formal schooling beginning in Weimar.
When J.S. Bach took the post of Cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig (in 1723), he enrolled
Friedemann in the associated Thomasschule. (J.S. Bach—who had himself been orphaned at the
age of 10—said that he took the position in Leipzig partly because of the educational
opportunities it afforded his children). On graduating in 1729, Friedemann enrolled as a law
student in Leipzig University, a renowned institution at the time, but later moved on to study law
and mathematics at the University of Halle. He maintained a lifelong interest in mathematics, and
continued to study it privately during his first job in Dresden.[1]

Friedemann was appointed in 1733 to the position of organist of the St. Sophia's Church at
Dresden. In competing for the post he played a new version of his father's Prelude and Fugue in G
Major, BWV 541. The judge described Friedemann as clearly superior to the other two candidates.
He remained a renowned organist throughout his life. Among his many pupils in Dresden was
Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the keyboardist whose name is erroneously enshrined in the popular
nickname given to J. S. Bach's 1742 publication, "Aria with Diverse Variations"—that is, "The
Goldberg Variations." The scholar Peter Williams has discredited the story which links the work to
Goldberg stating that J. S. Bach wrote the work for the Russian Ambassador Count Hermann Carl
von Keyserlingk, who would ask his employee, Goldberg, to play variations for him to ward off
insomnia. Williams instead has argued that J.S. Bach wrote the variations to provide a display
piece for Friedemann.[2]

In 1746 Friedemann became organist of the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle.[1] In 1751, Friedemann

married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi (1721–1791), who was 11 years his junior and who outlived
him by seven years. Dorothea was the daughter of a tax collector. The landed estates she
inherited caused the family to be placed in a high tax bracket by Halle authorities, who were
raising taxes to meet the revenue demands of the Seven Years' War. To raise cash for these
payments, she sold part of her property in 1770. The couple produced two sons and a daughter,
Friederica Sophia (born in 1757), who was the only one of their offspring to live past infancy. The
descendents of Friederica Sophia eventually migrated to Oklahoma.[3]

Portrait by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, formerly believed to show Wilhelm Friedemann, but
depicting his pupil Johann Christian Bach (1743–1814) from Halle

Friedemann was deeply unhappy in Halle almost from the beginning of his tenure. In 1749 he
was involved in a conflict with the Cantor of the Liebfrauenkirche, Gottfried Mittag, who had
misappropriated funds that were due to Friedemann. In 1750 the church authorities
reprimanded Friedemann for overstaying a leave of absence (he was in Leipzig settling his father's
estate). In 1753 he made his first documented attempt to find another post, and thereafter made
several others. All these attempts failed. Bach had at least two pupils, Friedrich Wilhelm Rust and
Johann Samuel Petri.
In 1762, he negotiated for the post of Kapellmeister to the court of Darmstadt; although he
protracted the negotiations for reasons that are opaque to historians and did not actively take
the post, he nevertheless was appointed Hofkapellmeister of Hessen-Darmstadt, a title he used
in the dedication of his Harpsichord Concerto in E minor.

In June 1764, Friedemann left the job in Halle without any employment secured elsewhere.[1]
His financial situation deteriorated so much that in 1768 he re-applied for his old job in Halle,
without success. He thereafter supported himself by teaching. After leaving Halle in 1770, he
lived for several years (1771–1774) in Braunschweig where he applied in vain for the post of an
organist at the St. Catherine's church. Then he moved to Berlin, where he initially was welcomed
by the princess Anna Amalia (the sister of Frederick the Great). Later, no longer in favor at court,
he gave harpsichord lessons to Sarah Itzig Levy, the daughter of a prominent Jewish family in
Berlin and an avid collector of Bach and other early 18th century music, who was also a "patron"
of Friedemann's brother CPE Bach.[4] Friedemann died in Berlin.

Earlier biographers have concluded that his "wayward" and difficult personality reduced his
ability to gain and hold secure employment, but the scholar David Schulenberg writes (in the
Oxford Composer Companion: J.S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd, 1999) that "he may also have been
affected by changing social conditions that made it difficult for a self-possessed virtuoso to
succeed in a church- or court-related position" (p. 39). Schulenberg adds, "he was evidently less
willing than most younger contemporaries to compose fashionable, readily accessible music".

Friedemann Bach was renowned for his improvisatory skills. It is speculated that when in Leipzig
his father's accomplishments set so high a bar that he focused on improvisation rather than
composition. Evidence adduced for this speculation includes the fact that his compositional
output increased in Dresden and Halle.

Friedemann's compositions include many church cantatas and instrumental works, of which the
most notable are the fugues, polonaises and fantasias for clavier, and the duets for two flutes. He
incorporated more elements of the contrapuntal style learned from his father than any of his
three composer brothers, but his use of the style has an individualistic and improvisatory edge
which endeared his work to musicians of the late 19th century, when there was something of a
revival of his reputation.

Friedemann's students included Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who in 1802 published the first
biography of Johann Sebastian Bach; Friedemann, as well as his younger brother Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach, were major informants for Forkel. Friedemann has in earlier biographies been
called a poor custodian of his father's musical manuscripts, many of which he inherited; however,
more recent scholars are uncertain how many were lost. It is known that Friedemann sold some
of his father's collection to raise cash to pay debts (including a large sale in 1759 to Johann Georg
Nacke). Also, his daughter took some of the Sebastian Bach manuscripts with her when she
moved to America, and these were passed on to her descendants, who inadvertently destroyed
many of them. Others were passed on through his only known Berlin pupil, Sarah Itzig Levy,
great-aunt of Felix Mendelssohn. Some of his scores were collected by Carl Friedrich Christian
Fasch and his pupil Carl Friedrich Zelter, the teacher of Felix Mendelssohn and through them
these materials were placed in the library of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, which Fasch founded in
1791 and of which Zelter took charge in 1800.

Friedemann is known occasionally to have claimed credit for music written by his father, but this
was in keeping with common musical practices in the era.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is not to be confused with Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, his nephew,
also a composer.

Film

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Friedemann Bach is a 1941 German historical drama film directed by Traugott Müller and starring
Gustaf Gründgens, Leny Marenbach and Johannes Riemann. The film depicts the life of Johann
Sebastian Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. It is based on Albert Emil Brachvogel's novel
Friedemann Bach. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is shown as a gifted son trying to escape his father's
shadow.