Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714. He was sent to Frankfort to study law, but instead established a chorus with himself as its leader. In 1738 he went to Berlin, where, two years later, we see him playing the accompaniments to ‘Old Fritz’s’ flute solos. The royal amateur’s accomplishments were of doubtful merit, but Bach stood the strain for twenty-seven years, at the end of which the king abandoned the flute for the sword, and Bach abandoned the king to finish his days in Hamburg as director of church music. But church music was not his _métier_. His cantatas were ‘pot-boilers.’ Emanuel was made of different stuff from his father. He fitted into his time--a polished courtier, more witty than pious, more suave than sincere, more brilliant than deep, but of solid musicianship none the less--the technician _par excellence_, both as composer and executant, a clean-cut formalist, a thorough harmonist ‘crammed full of racy novelty,’ though not free from pedantry, and preferring always the _galant_ style of the period. The ‘polite’ instrument, the harpsichord, was essentially his. The ‘Essay on the True Manner of Playing the Clavier,’ which he wrote in Berlin, is still of value to-day. His technique was, no doubt, derived from that of his father, but he introduced a still more advanced method of fingering. His great importance to history, however, lies in his instrumental compositions, comprising no less than two hundred and ten solo pieces--piano sonatas, rondos, concertos, trio-sonatas of the conventional type (two violins and bass), six string quartets and the symphonies printed in 1780. These works exercised a dual force. While yielding to the taste of the time, they held the balance to the side of greater harmonic richness and artistic propriety; on the other hand, they played an important part in the further development of the prevailing forms to a point where they could become ‘free enough and practical enough to deal with the deep emotions.’ ‘As yet people looked on the art as a refined sort of amusement. Not until Beethoven had written his music did its possibilities as a vehicle for deep human feeling and experience become evident.’[26] By following fashion Bach became its leader, and so exercised a widespread influence over his contemporaries and immediate followers. For a few years, says Mr. W. H. Hadow, the fate of music depended upon Emanuel Bach; Mozart himself, though directly influenced by him only in later life, called him ‘the father of us all.’