Johann Christian Bach (September 5, 1735 – January 1, 1782) was a composer of the Classical era.

He was a eleventh boy of Johann Sebastian Bach, and was innate inside Leipzig, Germany. His father, & even likewise Johann Christian's 2nd cousaround Johann Elias Bach, trained immature Johann Christian in music. These are believed that Book Deuce of Johann Sebastian’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was written and utilized for Johann Christian's instruction. Johann Christian served when scribe to his father. On the dying of his father around 1750, Johann Christian became the pupil of his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin.

Inside 1754 he went to Italy where he studied contrast under Giovanni Battista Martini, and from either 1760 to 1762 held the post of organist at Milan cathedral, for which he wrote two Masses, a Requiem, a Te Deum and other works. About this instance he converted from either Lutheranism to Catholicism.

He was a lone one of Johann Sebastian's sons to write opera in Italian, starting with arias inserted into a operas of others, so pasticcios. A Teatro Regio inside Turin commissioned him to write Artaserse, an opera seria that was premiered in 1760. This led to additional opera commissions & offers from either Venice & London to compose operas for the babies. He accepted a London chance & travelled there within 1762, & it was to exist as London in which he would spend a rest of his life. So, he is typically known as a "London Bach". A Milan Cathedral saved his position open, hoping he would go to.

For twenty years he was a virtually all popular musician within England. His dramatic works, produced at a King’s theatre, were received using dandy amity. A number 1 one, Orione, was one of a number 1 couple of musical works to have clarinets. His final opera seria, La Clemenza di Scipione (1778), remained popular by owning London audiences for numbers of years & shows interesting parallels by having Mozart's last opera therein genre, La Clemenza di Tito (1791), suggesting the immature composer might own been influenced per sr.'s score.

Johann Christian was appointed music master to a Queen, & his duties involved rendering music lessons to her & her kids, & concomitant in piano, the King swimming flute. His concerts, given within partnership by using Abel at the Hanover Square rooms, soon became a virtually all fashionable of public amusement.

inside the period of his 1st years in London, Bach mass produced friends sustaining the super immature however super promising musician, Mozart, world health organization wwhen there as a share of the endless tours intended by his father Leopold for the purpose of displaying him as a child prodigy. Several scholars judge that J. C. Bach was one of the first influences around Mozart, world health organization learned from either him training develop a brilliant & attractive skin-deep texture in his music. This influence may be seen directly inside the opening of Mozart’s piano sonata in B‐flat (KV 315c, a Linz sonata from either 1783 – 1784) which super closely resembles that of ii sonatas of Bach’s which Mozart would use at times known; & indirectly withinside Bach’s attempt in an early sonata (a 100 minor piano sonata, Op. Quint there is no. Captain hicks) to additional profits combine a galant style of his day with fugal music.

Johann Christian Bach died within London on the number 1 day of 1782. Mozart said within the letter to his father that it was "a loss to the musical world." At a period of Bach's dying, Mozart was composing his Piano Concerto No. Twelve within The Major, K. 414; the Andante 2nd movement of this concerto has a theme about of these incurred inside Bach's La calamità del cuori overture. It has been suggested that Mozart's slow movement was designed as a tribute to Bach, his music, & his importance to Mozart's have function.

Evaluation

Although Bach's fame declined within the decades resulting his demise, his music however showed abreast concert programmes in London by owning a bit of regularity, typically coupled by having works by Haydn. In the 19th century, scholarly function on the life & music of Johann Christian's father began, however typically this led to exaltation of J.S. Bach's music at a expense of that of his sons; Phillip Spitta claimed towards a prevent of his J.S. Bach life history that "it is especially in Bach's sons that we may mark the decay of that power which had culminated [in Sebastian] after several centuries of growth" (Spitta, Vol. Trine, p. 278), & Sebastian's foremost biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, said specifically of Christian that "The original spirit of Bach is . . . not to be found in any of his works" (Future Bach Reader, p. 458). It was non until a 20th century that scholars & a musical globe began to understand that Bach's sons can legitimately compose within the different style than their father forgoing their musical idioms existence inferior even or debased, & composers prefer Johann Christian began to receive renewed appreciation.

He is of a few historical interest when a number one composer world health organization favorite a piano to older keyboard instruments such as a cembalo. Johann Christian’s early music shows a influence of his older brother Carl Philipp Emanuel, when his middle period of time around Italy shows a influence of Sammartini.

Miscellaneous

The to the full account of J. C. Bach’s career is given in the quaternary volume of Charles Burney's History of Music.

There are ii others known as Johann Christian Bach in the Bach genealogy, however neither was the musician.