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Monday, September 14, 2026
Friday, September 11, 2026
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 at Ground Zero as the names of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks were read aloud.
The performance took place during the 25th anniversary memorial service in New York, where Yo-Yo Ma and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus were among those who performed.
: Zohran Mamdani on X 
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Grandson: The Last Composer of the Bach Dynasty
It’s well known that Johann Sebastian Bach had 20 children. Several of his sons became accomplished composers in their own right.
But what about the next generation?
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759–1845) was the grandson of Johann Sebastian – and the last member of the family to pursue composition professionally.
Today we’re taking a look at his life, his career, and five of his most interesting works.
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach’s Background and Training
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach was born on 24 May 1759.
He was the son of composer Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (the fifth son of Johann Sebastian Bach) and his wife, singer Lucia Elisabeth Münchhausen. We wrote about their marriage here: https://interlude.hk/christoph-friedrich-bach-and-lucia-elisabeth-munchausen/.
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Wilhelm was one of eight children, only half of whom survived infancy. He was the only boy to live to adulthood, and therefore the only one who pursued music professionally.
His music education began under his father. Later he went to Hamburg to study with an uncle, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, usually referred to as C.P.E. Bach.
In 1778, when he was nineteen, he and his father went to London to visit yet another uncle, Johann Christian Bach, whom Wilhelm studied with until Johann Christian died in 1782.
He may have been the only person ever to study with three of Johann Sebastian’s sons.
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach’s Career
After Johann Christian Bach’s death, Wilhelm returned to the Continent, embarking on a concert tour in the Netherlands and France.
In 1786, he was named the Kapellmeister in Minden, Germany, a small town a hundred miles south of Hamburg.
King Friedrich Wilhelm II
The following year, his life and career took a turn when King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia visited Minden.
The king was impressed by a work of Wilhelm’s that he heard during his trip, and hired Bach as Kapellmeister for his own court.
In 1788, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach became Kapellmeister in Berlin, a position he held for over twenty years. Part of his duties included teaching music to Prussian princes.
He married twice. In 1798, he married a woman named Charlotte Elerdt. She had two daughters, Caroline and Juliane, before dying young in 1801.
He remarried a woman named Wilhelmine the following year and had two more children: Auguste and Friederike.
Of the four children, only Caroline and Auguste survived past childhood.
Caroline lived until 1871, becoming the last surviving direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach’s Retirement
In 1811, at the age of fifty-two, Wilhelm retired from his Kapellmeister duties after the Prussian royal family granted him a pension. He continued living in Berlin, where he appeared as a pianist and composer.
He reappeared in music history in 1843, when he travelled to Leipzig, where a monument to Johann Sebastian Bach was being dedicated.
While there, he met a young Robert Schumann, who described him as “a very old, agile gentleman of 84 years old with snow-white hair and expressive features.”
He also corresponded with Felix Mendelssohn, who, with the help of his Bach-loving family, had done much advocacy for Johann Sebastian Bach’s music.
Wilhelm died a few years later, in 1845.
He was open-eyed about his legacy, acknowledging the discrepancy in talent between himself and his grandfather, and is remembered for his wry remark, “Heredity can tend to run out of ideas.”
Today we’re looking at five of Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach’s works.
Symphony No. 2 in G major
This is a slender, spirited three-movement symphony.
The outer movements are sparkly and mischievous, with a serene, noble slow movement that prominently features horn calls reminiscent of genteel hunting horns.
Sestetto Concertante
This is an elegant work for clarinet, two horns, violin, viola, and cello, written around 1800.
The varied, unconventional instrumentation would have helped it to carry in a large aristocratic space, and it is easy to imagine it as background music for a charming, gossipy, candlelit event.
Westphalens Freude
“Westphalens Freude” (“Westphalens Joy” or “Triumph! Triumph Westphalia!”) was a cantata published in 1791, composed for orchestra, chorus, and vocal soloists.
This is the work celebrating King Friedrich Wilhelm that so impressed the monarch that he invited Bach to work in Berlin.
Toccata
Just like his famous grandfather, Wilhelm wrote works for solo organ.
Although this Toccata may not be as forcefully virtuosic as Johann Sebastian’s, it is pleasantly triumphant and explores a range of the instrument’s timbres.
Das Dreyblatt
This is an unusual (to put it mildly) work written for one keyboard, three players, and six hands.
The centre player is to be a large man, and the ones on the sides are to be petite women.
In an era when playing piano duets was one of the few socially acceptable times for unmarried men and women to be physically close, this piece takes the sexual subtext of the genre and makes it quite explicit!
Conclusion
Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach may not have matched his grandfather’s towering genius – as he himself cheerfully admitted.
But his long life gave him a unique vantage point on musical history, bridging the world of Johann Sebastian Bach and the early Romantic era of Schumann and Mendelssohn.
If you’d like to explore more of the Bach family tree, we’ve written more about it here: https://interlude.hk/the-bach-family-eight-fascinating-relatives-of-johann-sebastian/.
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6 Violin-Like Instruments From Around the World
The violin is one of the most recognisable instruments in the world – but it is far from the only instrument of its kind.
Across cultures and centuries, musicians have developed bowed string instruments that share the violin’s basic logic: strings, a resonating body, and a bow.
Some of these instruments predate the violin; others were built to solve problems the violin couldn’t. All of them are worth knowing.
Here are six violin-like instruments from around the world.
Stroh Violin
The Stroh violin was invented by electrical engineer Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh in 1899.
Unlike a traditional violin, it replaces the wooden body with a metal diaphragm and attached horn, which amplify the sound and project it outward.
Stroh violin or Horn-violin
This made it perfect for the early recording era, when it was difficult for recording equipment to capture the sound of acoustic string instruments.
However, it was more expensive to manufacture than a traditional violin, and once recording technology advanced, the instrument became obsolete.
The Stroh violin is largely forgotten today, but is still admired as a historical curiosity.
Electric Violin
Electric violins are violins equipped with an electronic pickup that transmits sound to an amplifier.
The pickup is attached to the bridge, body, or fingerboard.
Electric violins don’t need to hew to traditional designs, and many don’t. It’s common to see instruments with five or more strings, frets, or carbon fibre bodies – enough differences to differentiate the electric violin as a separate instrument from its acoustic counterpart.
A traditional acoustic violin and a modern electronic violin from Marc Capuano
The electric violin’s roots stretch back to the 1920s. Jazz violinist Stuff Smith (1909-1967) was among the first to bring the electric violin to prominence. By the 1930s, they were being sold commercially.
Apache Fiddle
The Apache are indigenous people native to the southwestern United States.
One of their musical instruments is called the “tsii’ edo’a’tl”, which, translated literally, means “wood that sings.” However, it is better known in English as the Apache fiddle.
Arizona Apache fiddle, from the Musical Instrument Museum – Phoenix, Arizona
The Apache fiddle is made from the stem of a thick-stalked plant, such as agave.
One or two strands of natural material – such as horsehair – serve as strings. The player stops the strings with their fingers and draws a bow across them.
To create more friction between the string and the bow, the player might apply sticky pine pitch onto the bow – similar to how rosin is used for violin bows.
Historically, the instrument is known for its role in Apache courtship rituals.
Pochette
We wrote a whole article on the pochette here: https://interlude.hk/the-violin-in-your-pocket/
Pochettes (French for “pockets”) were miniature violin-like instruments that first appeared in the 1400s. They were favoured by dancing masters due to their portability.
Decorated pochette
The instrument is played tucked onto the player’s chest.
The pochette is usually tuned one octave above a violin’s range, and its sound is shriller. Its range is also notably smaller; in fact, a player can’t shift above third or fifth position without running out of string to stop.
Erhu
An erhu is an ancient two-stringed Chinese instrument. Its predecessor instruments first appeared during the Tang Dynasty (600–900 CE).
Erhu in the Mets
Over the following centuries, the erhu evolved into a folk instrument most often seen in southern China.
An accomplished erhu player, Liu Tianhua, introduced the erhu to Beijing in the 1920s, updating the instrument and composing new music for it.
The bodies of many erhus are covered with python skin. In 2005, new regulations were put in place in China requiring documentation of the origins of the skin; today, erhu python skins must come from farm-raised pythons rather than endangered wild specimens.
The player vibrates the skin by bowing the two strings. The two strings are tuned to A and D – interestingly, the same pitches as the middle two strings of a violin.
Hardanger fiddle
The national instrument of Norway, the Hardanger fiddle has inspired generations of composers, from Edvard Grieg to film composer Howard Shore.
The earliest surviving Hardanger fiddle was built in 1651 by maker Ole Jonsen Jaastad, who lived in the town of Hardanger, Norway.
A Hardanger fiddle made by Knut Gunnarsson Helland. Owned by Monica Skaro, who inherited it from her grandfather Knut Skaro from Geilo, Norway
Although at first glance a Hardanger fiddle looks similar to a modern violin, there are some noteworthy differences.
The fiddle has four main strings like a violin, as well as secondary strings that vibrate sympathetically when particular pitches are played.
A Hardanger fiddle also has a longer scroll and more tuning pegs (to account for the extra strings), a larger bridge designed to facilitate playing on two strings at once, and folk-inspired decorations.
The Hardanger fiddle, like many European folk instruments, has long been associated with the devil. In fact, during religious revivals of the 1800s, many Hardanger fiddles were destroyed.
In 2023, we wrote about the history of the Hardanger fiddle and how Grieg was inspired by it: https://interlude.hk/finding-home-griegs-violin-sonata-no-1/
Conclusion
From the Apache fiddle’s agave stem to the Hardanger fiddle’s sympathetic strings, these six instruments represent just a fraction of the world’s bowed string traditions.
The violin may be the version most familiar to Western ears – but as these instruments attest, the instinct to draw a bow across a string to make it sing is very nearly universal.
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