August Wilhelm Bach

August Wilhelm Bach ( born October 4, 1796 in Berlin, † April 15, 1869 ) was a German composer and organist.

Life

With the family of Johann Sebastian Bach, there is no relationship. His father Gottfried, organist at the Berlin Trinity Church, was his first music teacher. After attending high school, he worked in 1813 as a private music teacher outside of Berlin.

He returned in 1814 to Berlin to take up the post of organist at the Gertraud church after his original hope was not fulfilled in the footsteps of his now deceased father at the Holy Trinity Church. He continued his musical training with Carl Friedrich Zelter ( counterpoint) and Ludwig Berger (piano) continued and joined in 1815 the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. In 1816 he became organist at the Marienkirche in Berlin.

In 1820 he became a teacher of organ and theory at Zelter new gegründetem Royal Music Institute and by Zelter's death its director. This office he held until his death. The Institute was formed primarily from a church musician and was in the Papestraße 10 With the appointment of the so-called " commissary of the Royal Deputation organ building ", he received next great influence on the organ building projects in Prussia.

From 1833 he became a member of the Senate of the Royal Academy of Arts and teachers in the local " ward for musical composition ." August Wilhelm Bach was from the early 1830s until his death one of the most influential figures in Berlin's musical life. He has taught many important students ( among them the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy ) and, as an organ expert organ building in Prussia some impetus. It was he who gave the impetus to seek a solution to the difference between organ tone and pitch, a subject with which the Academy of Arts employed. As an organist he was involved in a special way for the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

His grave was located on the St. Mary's and St. Nicholas Cemetery I in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg.

Works

Unrated addition to compositions for soloists, chorus and orchestra, including the 100th Psalm, " joyful noise unto the Lord all the world," he mostly wrote numerous organ works ( preludes, fantasias, fugues, etc. ), piano and chamber music, the meaning, however, particularly high can be. Epigonal and the contemporary taste committed they are based too heavily on older traditions and find only very exceptionally to an independent language. Prolonged stock had its published around 1830 three-part collection of " The Practical Organist " with organ pieces for practical use.