Whilehm Friedemann Bach Free Sheet Music, Program Notes, Recordings and Biography

The Tragic Genius: J.S. Bach's Brilliant Firstborn Son

For his eldest son's ninth birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach began a new manuscript. It was a keyboard instruction book, the famous Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. But it was far more than a simple exercise manual. Within its pages, a father poured out his life’s wisdom, carefully guiding his child from the most basic notes to the complexities of ornamentation, invention, and the sacred art of counterpoint. It was a document of immense pedagogical genius, but also of immense paternal ambition. Wilhelm Friedemann was the crown prince, the designated heir to the Bach musical throne, and this book was his anointment. Possessed of a talent that nearly rivaled his father's, Friedemann was destined for greatness. Yet, his life became a story of unfulfilled promise, a brilliant but troubled journey of a genius caught between the shadow of a monumental legacy and the dawn of a new world he could never quite navigate.

The Crown Prince of Music

Wilhelm Friedemann, born in Weimar in 1710, was the repository of his father's greatest hopes. J.S. Bach personally oversaw every aspect of his education. Beyond the famous Klavierbüchlein, Friedemann was the direct inspiration for some of his father's most enduring works. The celebrated Inventions and Sinfonias were written for his instruction, and the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier was compiled for his use. He studied organ with his father, becoming a virtuoso of legendary ability, said to be the only one who could flawlessly execute the most complex pedal passages his father wrote.

He also received a superb academic education, attending the famous Thomasschule in Leipzig before enrolling at the University of Leipzig to study law, mathematics, and philosophy. This combination of profound musical training and broad intellectual grounding made him one of the most learned musicians of his generation. By the time he was a young man, he had already begun to compose, creating works of astonishing complexity and originality that displayed both his inherited mastery of counterpoint and a new, restless, and deeply personal expressiveness. All of Europe's most prestigious musical posts were expected to be his for the taking.

The Organist of Dresden and Halle

In 1733, at the age of 23, Friedemann secured his first major appointment: organist of the Sophienkirche (St. Sophia's Church) in Dresden. This was a brilliant start. The Dresden court was one of the most glamorous and artistically vibrant in Europe, home to famous composers like Johann Adolph Hasse. Friedemann's organ playing was widely admired, and his reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat eccentric, virtuoso grew. During this period, he composed many of his finest concertos and sinfonias, works that show a confident blend of his father’s style with the more modern Italianate influences prevalent at the court.

After thirteen successful years in Dresden, he accepted a new post in 1746 as the organist of the Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) in Halle. This was a symbolic victory; Halle was the home of the great composer George Frideric Handel, and Friedemann's predecessor was a man whose career had been hampered by J.S. Bach himself. Here, Friedemann was the undisputed musical leader of the city. He had a magnificent organ at his disposal and the freedom to compose a significant body of church cantatas and instrumental music. It was in Halle that he composed many of his most characteristic keyboard works, including the startlingly original Eight Fugues and his famous sets of Polonaises. These works are neither purely Baroque nor purely Classical. They are uniquely Friedemann: unpredictable, harmonically daring, and filled with a nervous, intellectual energy that was all his own.

A Difficult Freedom

Despite his secure position and high reputation, Friedemann was restless. He felt underpaid and artistically constrained. His personality, described as proud, stubborn, and suspicious, made it difficult for him to navigate the political and social duties required of a town music director. In 1764, after years of friction with the church authorities, he did the unthinkable: he resigned from his post without having another one lined up. This single act marked the turning point of his life, beginning a twenty-year period of instability from which he would never recover.

For the rest of his life, Friedemann wandered. He moved from city to city—Braunschweig, Göttingen, and finally Berlin—surviving by giving private lessons, dedicating compositions to potential patrons, and giving organ recitals. He applied for numerous prestigious posts but was always passed over, his difficult reputation often preceding him. He was a man out of time. His music was too complex and strange for the prevailing taste, which favored the clear, elegant style galant perfected by his younger, more successful brother, Johann Christian Bach. He was unwilling or unable to compromise his fiercely individual artistic vision for popular appeal. While his brothers C.P.E. Bach and J.C. Bach successfully bridged the gap to the new Classical era, Friedemann remained a solitary figure, a master of a style too personal to find a home.

The Tragic Genius

Friedemann’s final years in Berlin were marked by poverty and artistic isolation. It is during this period that the most unfortunate stories about him arose. He became the custodian of a large portion of his father's priceless manuscripts after J.S. Bach's death. Desperate for money, he sold off many of these treasures, which were subsequently scattered and lost. While historical research has shown that some of the more lurid tales of his neglect were exaggerated, there is no doubt that his actions resulted in the irreversible loss of many of his father's works.

He died in Berlin in 1784 in deep poverty. His death marked the tragic end of the brilliant "crown prince" for whom so much had been hoped. His legacy is complex. As a composer, he was a true original. His music, with its jarring contrasts, strange harmonies, and fusion of rigorous counterpoint with raw emotion, is unlike anything else of its time. His Duets for Two Flutes are masterpieces of equality and invention, and his keyboard Fantasias explore psychological depths that his contemporaries rarely dared to touch. He was a genius, but a genius who lacked the temperament to succeed in a changing world. Caught between the towering legacy of his father and an artistic future he could glimpse but not fully join, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach remains one of classical music’s most brilliant and poignant figures—a testament to the fact that talent alone is not always enough.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• Wolff, Christoph. The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

• Schulenberg, David. The Music of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. University of Rochester Press, 2010.

• Geiringer, Karl and Irene. The Bach Family: Seven Generations of Creative Genius. Oxford University Press, 1954.

• Helm, E. Eugene, Peter Wollny, and Christoph Wolff. "Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann." Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press, 2001.

• Bitter, C. H. Die Söhne Sebastian Bachs. 1868. (An early and important biographical source).