Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was born on November 22, 1710, and died on July 1, 1784. He was a German composer, organist, and harpsichordist. He was the second child and oldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. Although he was recognized as a very talented musician and composer, his job and income were not reliable. He lived most of his life without much money and died in poverty.

Life

Wilhelm Friedemann (hereafter Friedemann) was born in Weimar, where his father worked as an organist and chamber musician for the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. In July 1720, when Friedemann was nine years old, his mother, Maria Barbara Bach, died suddenly. Johann Sebastian Bach, Friedemann’s father, remarried in December 1721. J. S. Bach closely guided Friedemann’s musical education and career. The step-by-step keyboard and composition lessons J. S. Bach provided are recorded in a book titled Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (modern spelling: Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach), which includes entries by both father and son. Friedemann’s education also included parts of the French Suites, (Two-Part) Inventions, (Three-Part) Sinfonias (commonly called "Inventions"), the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the six Trio Sonatas for organ. At age 16, Friedemann traveled to Merseburg to study the violin with his teacher, Johann Gottlieb Graun.

In addition to music, Friedemann received formal schooling in Weimar. When J. S. Bach became the music director at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig in 1723, he enrolled Friedemann in the associated Thomasschule. (J. S. Bach, who had lost his parents at age 10, chose this position partly because it offered educational opportunities for his children.) After graduating in 1729, Friedemann studied law at Leipzig University, a well-known institution at the time, and later studied law and mathematics at the University of Halle. He continued to study mathematics privately during his first job in Dresden.

In 1733, Friedemann was appointed organist at St. Sophia’s Church in Dresden. To compete for the position, he performed a new version of his father’s Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541. The judge said Friedemann was clearly better than the other two candidates. He remained a well-known organist throughout his life. Among his students in Dresden was Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the keyboardist whose name is mistakenly linked to J. S. Bach’s 1742 work Aria with Diverse Variations, commonly called "The Goldberg Variations." Scholar Peter Williams has said the story connecting the work to Goldberg is incorrect. Instead, he argues J. S. Bach wrote the piece for the Russian Ambassador Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, who asked Goldberg to play the variations to entertain him during sleepless nights. Williams also suggests J. S. Bach created the variations as a display piece for Friedemann.

In 1746, Friedemann became organist at the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle. In 1751, he married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi, who was 11 years younger than him. She outlived him by seven years. Dorothea was the daughter of a tax collector, and the land she inherited caused her family to be placed in a high tax bracket by Halle authorities, who were raising taxes to meet the needs of the Seven Years’ War. To pay these taxes, she sold part of her property in 1770. The couple had two sons and a daughter, Friederica Sophia (born in 1757), who was the only child to survive infancy. Descendants of Friederica Sophia later moved to Oklahoma.

Friedemann was very unhappy in Halle from the start of his job there. In 1749, he had a conflict with the church’s Cantor, Gottfried Mittag, who misused funds meant for Friedemann. In 1750, church authorities reprimanded Friedemann for staying in Leipzig longer than allowed while settling his father’s estate. In 1753, Friedemann first tried to find another job, and he made several other attempts afterward, but none worked. Bach had at least two pupils, Friedrich Wilhelm Rust and Johann Samuel Petri.

In 1762, Friedemann negotiated for the position of Kapellmeister (music director) at the court of Darmstadt. Although he delayed the process for unclear reasons and did not take the job, he was still appointed Hofkapellmeister of Hessen-Darmstadt, a title he used in the dedication of his Harpsichord Concerto in E minor.

In June 1764, Friedemann left his job in Halle without securing another position. His financial situation worsened, and in 1768, he re-applied for his old job in Halle but was not hired. He then supported himself by teaching. After leaving Halle in 1770, he lived in Braunschweig (1771–1774) and tried in vain to become the organist at St. Catherine’s Church. He later moved to Berlin, where he was initially welcomed by Princess Anna Amalia (sister of Frederick the Great). Later, he gave harpsichord lessons to Sarah Levy, the daughter of a prominent Jewish family in Berlin and a collector of Bach’s music. Sarah was also a patron of Friedemann’s brother, C. P. E. Bach

Works

"BR-WFB" means "Bach-Repertorium Wilhelm Friedemann Bach." "Fk." means "Falck catalogue." Bach Digital Work (BDW) pages provide details about individual musical compositions.

• Fk. 34 – Fugue in B-flat major: was not written by any member of the Bach family
• Fk. 66 – Sinfonia in D minor: not genuine
• Fk. 101–105 – lost cantatas
• Orchestral Suite in G Minor, BWV 1070 (might not be genuine)
• Scherzo in D minor, BWV 844: credited to both Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Reception

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's set of six Preludes and Fugues for string trio, K. 404a, includes five fugues that were copied from The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach. The sixth fugue, in F minor, was adapted from one of the Eight Fugues (Falck 31) by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. The preludes in K. 404a are original compositions by Mozart, except for Prelude 4, which was copied from BWV 527, and Prelude 5, which is the second movement from BWV 526.

Friedemann Bach is a 1941 German historical film directed by Traugott Müller and starring Gustaf Gründgens, Leny Marenbach, and Johannes Riemann. The film shows the life of Johann Sebastian Bach's son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. It is based on the novel Friedemann Bach by Albert Emil Brachvogel. In the film, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is portrayed as a talented musician who attempts to escape the influence of his famous father.