Johann Christian was born in Germany, in Leipzig. His father was then 50 and he taught his son music until his death. In 1754, at the age of 19, Johann Christian Bach left for Italy, moved from Lutheranism to Catholicism and became interested in Italian opera, while continuing to compose and perform church music, serving as an organist in the Cathedral of Milan, he often left to write operas. And after his first operas, Artaxerxes and Cato in Utica, were staged in Turin and Naples, respectively, he finally gave up church music and in 1762 went to London for fame and wealth (he is still called the "London Bach" or "English Bach"). If his father had survived to this point, he would have been terrified
Bach's first success in London was the opera "Orion", which was staged with great splendor on the stage of the Royal Court Theatre in February 1763. It already had what would become the composer's signature style - the inventive use of woodwind, especially clarinets, which were first performed here in the opera orchestra. Orion was immediately followed by the equally successful Zanaida, which he earned the favour of Queen Charlotte and a salary of £300 as her music teacher (previously held by Handel until his death in 1759).
Bach's success as an opera composer was relatively short-lived, but his work was diverse. He composed instrumental concert music for performance in London's very popular entertainment gardens at the time (about the most famous of them, Renla and Vauxhall, Mozart's father Leopold once said: "These two gardens have no equal in the whole world. Vauxhall is extraordinary
In 1764, Bach, together with his friend and neighbour Carl Friedrich Abel, established the first paid subscription concerts in England - about 15 concerts per season. Bach and Abel's works were mostly performed there, but it was at these legendary concerts (then called Soho Subscription Concerts) that many of Haydn's works were presented to the English public for the first time. The concerts continued until Bach's death in 1782.
Johann Christian Bach died young: he was 46 years old. Debts are believed to have contributed to his death: Bach made a number of unsuccessful business decisions in an attempt to keep the popular concert project afloat. He wasn't as famous as his father, but still went down in the history of music. Now experts are inclined to believe that the influence of Bach Jr. on Mozart's composing technique is greater than previously thought. In London, Leopold and Mozart seem to have realized that Bach's music, in contrast to that of Gendel's, embodies the charm and elegance of the new style and that this style is forward-looking," wrote musicologist Adena Portowitz. - Moreover, Mozart was attracted by the very genres in which Bach shone: keyboard sonatas and concerti, symphonies and operas. Bach's vocal melodies, the graceful expressiveness of the ornamentation, the ambiguity, the intensity of harmonic writing and the vivid thematic contrasts became organic features of Mozart's style. Mozart was suppressed by the news of the death of his former teacher. "You must have already heard of the death of English Bach? - He wrote in one of his letters. - What a loss for the music world!
The story of George Bridgetower is one of the most unusual in all classical music, and it begins with a mystery. We know that he was born around 1780 in the Polish town of Byala, to a white mother from Eastern Europe, named Mary Anne, and a black father, John Frederick, who was probably from the West Indies.
. How did he end up in Poland? It is not clear. He may have been a fugitive slave, but he never shared his true story with anyone, preferring to say he was an African prince.
John Frederick had a talent for public relations, and he used it to promote his son Wunderkind's career, who would become one of the most prominent violinists of his generation. Some archival records show that John Frederick was a servant in the same Austro-Hungarian court where Haydn ran the musical institutions; and it is very tempting to imagine that perhaps young George studied with the great composer of the Classicism era.
From an early age, he certainly had an outstanding talent: at the age of nine he made his debut in Paris and received the most enthusiastic reviews, after which he immigrated to London to escape the French Revolution. There, his father organized his performances and dressed him up in exotic Turkish robes. It worked: the Prince of Wales, the future King George IV, noticed Bridgetower's talent and became his patron.
The name of Bridgetower would have been known to everyone if it wasn't for his altercation with Beethoven. They met in Vienna in 1803, just as Beethoven was writing his devilishly complex Ninth Sonata for Violin and Piano. Together they performed it for the first time for the public, Beethoven was at the piano. The composer was delighted with Bridgetower's improvisations and decided to dedicate his sonata to