Christoph Friedrich Bach
The fourth in our series of Bach’s sons is Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, born in Leipzig in 1732 and active in the city of Bückeburg from the age of 18 until his death in 1795. His employer, Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe, was a lover of Italian music, which Friedrich was also heavily influenced by. The Count was also devoted to Friedrich the Great of Prussia and was friends with the Enlightenment philosopher and poet Johann Gottfried von Herder, with whom Friedrich composed many musics by Herder’s texts.
He is a relatively unspoken musician among Bach’s sons, but he left behind quite a few compositions. The genres range from cantatas, oratorios, sonatas for clavier, and concertos to chamber music and symphonies in almost every genre, but I am not alone in feeling that he is still less inspired than his other siblings. His son, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, became the last of the Bach family musicians. In 1778 he visited London to meet his own brother, Johann Christian, and to entrust his son’s education to his brother. In doing so, it is said that he was exposed to and influenced by the music of Mozart.
