und Himmelfahrt Jesu (1777), and some seventy cantatas, litanies, motets and other liturgical pieces. At the same time his genius for instrumental composition was further stimulated by the career of Haydn, to whom he sent a letter of high appreciation, and the climax of his art was reached in the six volumes of sonatas für Kenner und Liebhaber, to which he devoted the best work of his last ten years. He died at Hamburg on the 14th of December 1788.
Through the latter half of the 18th century the reputation of K. P. E. Bach stood very high. Mozart said of him, “He is the father, we are the children”; the best part of Haydn’s training was derived from a study of his work; Beethoven expressed for his genius the most cordial admiration and regard. This position he owes mainly to his clavier sonatas, which mark an important epoch in the history of musical form. Lucid in style, delicate and tender in expression, they are even more notable for the freedom and variety of their structural design; they break away altogether from the exact formal antithesis which, with the composers of the Italian school, had hardened into a convention, and substitute the wider and more flexible outline which the great Viennese masters showed to be capable of almost infinite development. The content of his work, though full of invention, lies within a somewhat narrow emotional range, but it is not less sincere in thought than polished and felicitous in phrase. Again he was probably the first composer of eminence who made free use of harmonic colour for its own sake, apart from the movement of contrapuntal parts, and in this way also he takes rank among the most important pioneers of the school of Vienna. His name has now fallen into undue neglect, but no student of music can afford to disregard his Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber, his oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste, and the two concertos (in G major and D major) which have been republished by Dr Hugo Riemann.
A list of his voluminous compositions may be found in Eitner’s Quellen Lexikon, and a critical account of them is given in Bitter’s C. P. E. und W. F. Bach und deren Brüder (2 vols., Berlin, 1868), a mine of valuable though ill-arranged information.
Four more of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons grew to manhood and became musicians. The eldest of them, Wilhelm Friedermann Bach (1710–1784) was by common repute the most gifted; a famous organist, a famous improvisor and a complete master of counterpoint. But, unlike the rest of the family, he was a man of idle and dissolute habits, whose career was little more than a series of wasted opportunities. Educated at Leipzig, he was appointed in 1733 organist of the Sophienkirche at Dresden, and in 1747 became musical director of the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle. The latter office he was compelled to resign in 1764, and thenceforward he led a wandering life until, on the 1st of July 1784, he died in great poverty at Berlin. His compositions, very few of which were printed, include many church cantatas and instrumental works, of which the most notable are the fugues, polonaises and fantasias for clavier, and an interesting sestet for strings, clarinet and horns. Several of his manuscripts are preserved in the Royal library at Berlin; and a complete list of his works, so far as they are known, may be found in Eitner’s Quellen Lexikon.
The fourth son, Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach (1715–1739) was, like his elder brothers, born at Weimar and educated at Leipzig. From 1735 to 1738 he held successively the organistships at Mühlhausen and Sangerhausen; in 1738 he threw up his appointment and went to study law at Jena; in 1739 he died, aged 24.
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–1795), the ninth son, was born at Leipzig, studied at the Thomasschule and the university, and in 1750 was appointed Kapellmeister at Bückeburg. He was an industrious composer, especially of church-music and opera, whose work reflects no discredit on the family name.
Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782), the eleventh son, was born at Leipzig, and on the death of his father in 1750 became the pupil of his brother Emanuel at Berlin. In 1754 he went to Italy where he studied under Padre Martini, and from 1760 to 1762 held the post of organist at Milan cathedral, for which he wrote two Masses, a Requiem, a Te Deum and other works. Having also gained some reputation as a composer of opera, he was in 1762 invited to London and there spent the rest of his life. For twenty years he was the most popular musician in England, his dramatic works, produced at the King’s theatre, were received with great cordiality, he was appointed music-master to the queen, and his concerts, given in partnership with Abel at the Hanover Square rooms, soon became the most fashionable of public entertainments. He is of some historical interest as the first composer who preferred the pianoforte to the older keyed-instruments; but his works, though elegant and pleasing, were ephemeral in character and have been deservedly forgotten.
A full account of J. C. Bach’s career is given in the fourth volume of Burney’s History of Music, and a catalogue of his compositions in an article by Max Schwarz, published in the Sammelbände of the Internationale Musik-Gesellschaft, Jhrg. ii. p. 401. (W. H. Ha.)
BACHARACH, YAIR (1639–1702), German rabbi, was the author of Ḥawwoth Yaīr (a collection of Responsa) and other works. Bacharach was a man of wide culture, and holds an honourable place among the pioneers of the Jewish Renaissance which was inaugurated towards the end of the 18th century.
BACHARACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, romantically situated on the left bank of the Rhine, 30 m. above Coblenz on the railway to Mainz. Pop. 2000. There is an interesting church, a basilica, dating from the beginning of the 13th century. There are also ruins of a Gothic church of the 13th and 15th centuries. The ruined castle of Stahleck, crowning the heights above the town, is celebrated in history as the scene of the marriage between Henry, eldest son of Henry the Lion (shortly before the latter’s death in 1195) and Agnes of Hohenstaufen, which effected a temporary reconciliation between the houses of Welf and Hohenstaufen. Other ruined castles are those of Fürstenberg and Stahlberg. All three belonged to the counts palatine. The wines of Bacharach were once held in the greatest esteem, and it is still one of the chief markets of the Rhenish wine trade.
BACHAUMONT, LOUIS PETIT DE (1690–1771), French littérateur, was of noble family and was brought up at the court of Versailles. He passed his whole life in Paris as the centre of the salon of Madame Doublet de Persan (1677–1771), where criticism of art and literature took the form of malicious gossip. A sort of register of news was kept in a journal of the salon, which dealt largely in scandals and contained accounts of books suppressed by the censor. Bachaumont’s name is commonly connected with the first volumes of this register, which was published anonymously under the title Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la République des Lettres, but his exact share in the authorship is a matter of controversy. It was continued by Pidansat de Mairobert (1707–1779) and others, until it reached 36 volumes (1774–1779). It is of some value as a historical source, especially for prohibited literature. Extracts were published by P. Lacroix in one volume, 1859. An incomplete edition (4 vols.) was undertaken in 1830 by Ravenal.
See, in addition to the memoirs of the time, especially the Correspondance littéraire of Grimm, Diderot, d'Alembert and others (new ed., Paris, 1878, 17 vols.); Ch. Aubertin, L’Esprit public au XVIIIᵉ siècle (Paris, 1872).
BACHE, ALEXANDER DALLAS (1806–1867), American physicist, great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was born at Philadelphia on the 19th of July 1806. After graduating at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1825, he acted as assistant professor there for some time, and as a lieutenant in the corps of engineers he was engaged for a year or two in the erection of coast fortifications. He occupied the post of professor of natural philosophy and chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania in 1828–1841 and in 1842–1843. For the trustees of what in 1848 was to become Girard College, but had not yet been opened, he spent the years 1836–1838 in Europe, examining European systems of education, and on his return published a very valuable report. In 1843, on the death of Professor F. R. Hassler (1770–1843), he was appointed
