At Berlin, Bach became a type of musician that was new in early eighteenth-century Europe: a professional keyboard virtuoso who was neither a church organist nor a composer or director of music for a court. He arrived at Berlin without a position, and the court appointment that he soon obtained was part-time, allowing if not requiring him to find freelance work as a teacher, composer, and player. Present-day familiarity with the independent musical soloist or entrepreneur, an increasingly common type during the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, should not obscure for us its novelty at the time Bach began his career; he was a pioneer in a new profession.

Bach was not alone in this; except for Quantz, Graun, and the Italian singers, other members of the court musical establishment, especially the keyboard players, were in situations similar to his. Their time in Berlin coincided with a phenomenal growth in interest in all sorts of music among the upper and middle classes, and the city itself was growing as well. This reflected a general improvement in economic conditions across northern Europe, despite major conflicts such as the Seven Years' War of 1756–63. Enormous quantities of music were composed and disseminated—both in manuscript and in printed editions—to satisfy increasing demand not only for domestic use but for concerts of various types.