In sharp contrast to the career of the oldest son of Bach stands that of the youngest, Johann Christian (born 1734, in Leipzig), chiefly renowned as an opera composer of the Italian school. He has been called the ‘Milanese Bach,’ because from 1754 to 1762 he made that Italian city his home and there wrote operas, and became a Catholic to qualify as the organist of Milan Cathedral; and the ‘London Bach’ because there he spent the remaining twenty years of his life, a most useful and honorable career. His first London venture was in opera, too, but his historic importance does not lie in that field. Symphonies (including one for two orchestras), concertos for piano and various other instruments, quintets, quartets, trios, sonatas for violin, and numerous piano pieces which did much to popularize the new instrument, are his real monuments. Trained at first by his brother Emanuel, he was bound to follow the polite, elegant style of the period, and more so perhaps because of his Italian experience. For that reason his value has been greatly underestimated. But he is, nevertheless, an important factor in the stylistic reform that prepared the way for the great classics, and the upbuilding of German instrumental music. Of his influence upon Mozart and Haydn we shall have more to say anon. That influence was, of course, largely Italian, for Bach followed the Italian pattern in his sonatas. It was he that passed on to Mozart the _singing allegro_ which he had brought with him from Italy, and so he may be considered in a measure the communicator of Pergolesi’s genius. As the centre of London musical life Christian Bach exercised a tremendous influence in the formation of popular taste.[27] The subscription concerts which he and another German, Carl Friedrich Abel (1725-1787), instituted in 1764, were to London what the _Concerts spirituels_ were to Paris. Not only symphonies, but cantatas and chamber works of every description were here performed in the manner of our public concerts of to-day, and the higher forms of music were thus placed for the first time within the reach of a great number of people. After 1775 these concerts took place in the famous Hanover Square Rooms and were continued until 1782. In the following year another series, known as the ‘Professional Concerts,’ was begun and since that time the English capital has had an unbroken succession of symphonic concerts. IV