This volume of essays brings together the best of recent scholarship on Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of J.S. Bach and a friend and mentor of Mozart. J.C. Bach had a cosmopolitan career, beginning in Berlin as a pupil of his half-brother, C.P.E. Bach, then a sojourn to Italy where he studied with Padre Martini in Bologna; after making his successful debut with operas for Turin and Naples he moved to London, where he became a leading composer and impresario. The articles selected for this volume represent the principal themes of scholarly research and writing over the past fifty years. The introduction provides a survey of J.C. Bach’s career and an overview of recent literature. The collection includes English translations of two articles first published in German in the Bach-Jahrbuch, as well as one article published as recently as 2015. An appendix lists the complete contents of The Collected Works of Johann Christian Bach, using the Warburton catalogue numbers.

    Contents: Introduction. Part I Biographical: Christian Bach in London, Daniel Heartz; When did the youngest Bach son behin his ‘Italian journey’?, Hans-Joachim Schulze; J.C. Bach, G.B. Sammartini, and Padre Martini: a Concorso in Milan in 1762, Howard Brofsky; The Davies sisters, J.C. Bach and the glass harmonica, Betty Matthews; The ‘Paris’ Bach, Stephen Roe; J.C. Bach goes to law, John Small; J.C. Bach and ‘new music, at a more reasonable expence’, Stephen Roe; Abel, Christian Bach, and Gainsborough, Daniel Heartz. Part II Instrumental Music: Johann Christian Bach and the early classical Italian masters, Daniel E. Freeman; J.C. Bach and the early piano in London, Richard Maunder; The wind music of J.C. Bach, Stanley Sadie; Johann Christian Bach, Adena Portowitz; J.C. Bach’s symphonies and the Breitkopf thematic catalogue, Niels Krabbe; ‘For instruments not intended’: the second J.C. Bach lawsuit, Ann van Allen-Russell; Johann Christian Bach and the church symphony, Jen-yen Chen; Johann Christian Bach (1735-82), Jane R. Stevens; Social and musical matters pertaining to J.C. Bach’s third set of keyboard concertos, Bryan Gillingham. Part III Vocal Music: The newly rediscovered autograph manuscripts of Johann Christian Bach’s Milan sacred music at the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (ND VI 540, Vols. 1-4), Stephen Roe; J.C. Bach’s Gioas, re di Giuda: a meeting of metastasian and Handelian tradition, Kenneth Nott; J.C. Bach’s operas, Ernest Warburton; The misadventures of Artaserse (Turin, 1760): J.C. Bach’s first Italian opera from production to performance, Margaret R. Butler; Mozart and his elders: opera-seria arias, 1766-1775, Martha Feldman; Die Vertonungen der Arie ‘Non sò d’onde viene’, von J. Chr. Bach und von W.A. Mozart, Stefan Kunze; Introduction to Johann Christian Bach: Favourite Songs Sung at Vauxhall Gardens, Stephen Roe; Lucio Silla, by Mozart and J.C. Bach, Ernest Warburton; The case of J.C. Bach’s Lucio Silla, Paul Corneilson; J.C. Bach’s La clemenza di Scipione, Ernest Warburton; The application of the sonata principle to structure in La clemenza di Scipione by J.C. Bach, Virginia Palmer. Name index.

    Biography

    Paul Corneilson has been managing editor of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works, published by The Packard Humanities Institute, since 1999. He received his doctorate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1992, and also worked on the New Grove Dictionary of Opera and Recent Researches in Music, A-R Editions. He has published extensively on singers in the late eighteenth century and has edited two operas by J.C. Bach for performance: Zanaida at the Bachfest in 2011, and Lucio Silla at the Mozartwoche in 2013.