Bach, Johann Christian (1735-1782), German composer, youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in Leipzig, and given his first musical training there by his father. In 1750, when his father died, he went
Bach, Johann Christian (1735-1782), German composer, youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in Leipzig, and given his first musical training there by his father. In 1750, when his father died, he went to Berlin to study with his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He spent eight years in Italy, from 1754 to 1760 as music director for Count Antonio Litta in Milan and then from 1760 to 1762 as organist at the Milan Cathedral. During this period he also studied in Bologna with the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Martini. In 1762 Bach settled in London and soon became music master to the queen. Part of his success was the result of his mastery of the pleasant, tuneful style of Italian opera, which was then fashionable in London. From 1764 until his death he and another German composer living in London, Carl Friedrich Abel, produced a series of concerts that were famous because of the composers who wrote for them. One was the seven-year old prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Bach himself wrote about a dozen operas and many symphonies, concertos, piano pieces, and chamber music.
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