Johann Christian Bach

Youngest of Johann Sebastian's sons, he was taught first by his father and, after his father's death, went at fourteen to Berlin, where Carl Philipp Emanuel took over his education. Italy came next — study with Padre Martini in Bologna, conversion to Catholicism, the post of organist at Milan Cathedral — and then the theatre. Operatic success carried him to London in 1762 and he stayed for the rest of his life. As music master to Queen Charlotte, and with Carl Friedrich Abel as joint promoter of a subscription concert series, he became known as the London Bach. The eight-year-old Mozart met him there; he later turned three of the London Bach's keyboard sonatas into concertos of his own. He was born in Leipzig, the youngest son of his father's second marriage, left for Italy in the mid-1750s, and took the Milan organist's post in 1760 before becoming composer to the King's Theatre in London in 1762. His First Piano Concerto is dedicated to Queen Charlotte; the Bach-Abel concerts began in 1765, and he also arranged benefit events for retired musicians and their families. Amadis de Gaule, his only French opera, was given in Paris in 1779; he had seen Mozart again in Paris in 1778. He fell seriously ill in 1781 and died on 1 January 1782, leaving heavy debts.