Yet this was little more than the obligatory acknowledgement of his patron, whose musical integrity he is known to have questioned and with whom he did not enjoy mutual respect. Bach’s autobiography states that he ‘had the honour of accompanying His Majesty in the first solo he performed as King’. Having hitherto had to confine his musical activities to clandestine flute lessons with J J Quantz and duets with his servant, Frederick now began to assemble an impressive ensemble which was to include members of the Graun and Benda families, as well as C P E Bach, although their employment only formally commenced in 1740 upon Frederick’s succession. Frederick, now in his private residences at Ruppin and Rheinsberg, was at last enjoying a degree of freedom from his tyrannical upbringing. Upon graduating in 1738 Emanuel was offered a chance to travel in Europe, as tutor to the son of the Russian ambassador to Dresden, but he declined the invitation in order to take up a potentially advantageous position among the musical entourage of Crown Prince Frederick, heir to the throne of Prussia. Though an outstandingly gifted and highly active keyboard player and composer, he attended the universities of Leipzig and Frankfurt an der Oder as a student of law. At the age of nine he became a pupil at the Thomasschule in Leipzig where his father had taken up the post of Kantor. His mother died when he was only six years old. Carl Philipp Emanuel was born in Weimar in 1714, the fifth (though only the third surviving) of six children of Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife Maria Barbara.
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