View Composer

First Name

 Johann

Middle Name

 Christoph

Last Name

 Bach

Birth Year

 0

Death Year

 0000

Biography

 (b Arnstadt, bap. 8 Dec 1642; d Eisenach, bur. 2 April 1703 ). Composer and organist, son of Heinrich Bach (6). He was probably the most important member of the family before (7) Johann Sebastian (24). He received a thorough musical grounding from his father, and on 20 November 1663 was appointed organist of the Arnstadt castle chapel. Two years later he was invited by the Eisenach town council to apply for the post of organist at St Georg, and after an audition on 10 December 1665 he was appointed to that position and also to the post of harpsichordist in the court Kapelle of the Duke of Eisenach. He retained both positions until his death. Little is known of his work in the court Kapelle. From 1675 the Kapellmeister was Daniel Eberlin, later to become the father-in-law of Telemann, who also conducted the Kapelle on occasion, and for a short while (1677–8) Pachelbel was a member of the Kapelle. During much of his time there Johann Christoph’s most important colleague must have been his cousin, the violinist Johann Ambrosius (11); Ambrosius often served as his copyist, and their relationship was doubtless a close one. The young Johann Sebastian must also have received his first impressions of organ music from his father’s cousin. While Johann Christoph’s court position was one of high standing, his tenure of the civic one was marred by a succession of quarrels between him and the town council, for which he was not entirely blameless. It must be said in extenuation that throughout his years in Eisenach he was constantly beset by severe family difficulties, particularly the illnesses of his wife and children. His quarrels with the town council were mostly about his salary and the council’s refusal to provide an official residence for him, a deficiency eventually made good by the court. For many years he also battled with the council over the long-overdue restoration (or reconstruction) of the organ at St Georg; he was successful only in 1696, and then did not live to see the completion (by G.C. Stertzing) of the famous instrument in 1707 (his copious, expert notes on the organ’s reconstruction are extant; see Freyse). He died in 1703, just ten days after the death of his wife. Within the family Johann Christoph was highly respected as a composer (a ‘profound’ one according to the Ursprung). In Johann Sebastian’s obituary notice of 1754 he is mentioned expressly as one who ‘was as good at inventing beautiful thoughts as he was at expressing words. He composed, to the extent that current taste permitted, in a galantand cantabile style, uncommonly full-textured … On the organ and the keyboard [he] never played with fewer than five independent parts’. Johann Sebastian performed some of his motets and vocal concertos in Leipzig, as also did C.P.E. Bach later in Hamburg. Although Johann Christoph was primarily an organist and harpsichordist, his extant keyboard works are few, but they show him as a capable composer, stylistically akin to Pachelbel though in general less pedantic. His organ chorales (probably in effect written-down improvisations) demonstrate his mastery of the small form, while the strength of his artistry is developed in his extended harpsichord variations. His vocal works, in particular the motets and concertos, are notable for the variety of their settings. The concertos are characterized by their full instrumental writing, with unusually interesting inner part-writing. While the vocal writing is for the most part technically undemanding (the choral sections were intended for school choirs), the instrumental parts are usually highly elaborate and often call for a virtuoso solo violin (as in the two lamenti and the wedding concerto Meine Freundin, du bist schön). Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel thought particularly highly of his 22-part concerto for Michaelmas, Es erhub sich ein Streit, one of the finest vocal works of the late 17th century. Basically his double-choir motets follow the traditional central German model including both Spruch and chorale, with cantabile melodies and often lively alternation of tutti and soloists – a genre which indeed reached its peak in the works of Johann Christoph and his brother (3) Johann Michael (14). In both composers’ works the older style of writing, with alternating chordal and imitative sections, still predominated, for instance in the motet Der Gerechte, ob er gleich zu zeitlich stirbt, which is also a particularly fine example of Johann Christoph’s expressive harmony; but the newer style, with its livelier lines (including melismatic semiquaver passages) and looser, more concertante writing, is found in Sei getreu bis in den Tod and Der Mensch, vom Weibe geboren, obviously later works. The lack of documentation and the small number of the surviving works preclude the establishment of a reliable chronology of Johann Christoph’s music. Bibliography Christoph Wolff, et al. Bach. In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40023pg5 (accessed September 24, 2009).