Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Extract

The striking example of heredity shown in the evolution and development of the. Bach family is no doubt familiar to you all, so that a very brief mention of it will be sufficient. For generations, from the time of Veit Bach about 1555, they had been musicians, so well knówn that at one time town musicians in Erfurt were called “Bachs,” whether they included any of the family or not. This steady development of their art culminated in the person of John Sebastian Bach, born 1685, and it is one of the curious facts in musical history that after his death it ceased in so short a time. True, his sons were all musical, and two or three of them made some considerable mark; but with the exception of the eldest, Wilhelm Friedemann, it was in a totally different line from that in which their father's genius had moved, though it is easy to trace the influence which his work had on their compositions.