No musician was ever more fortunate than Emanuel Bach. His father was the world's greatest composer, keyboard player, and teacher of musicians. His older brother was the most brilliant improviser and keyboard virtuoso of his generation, and his youngest brother was the most influential composer of the next. Although his mother died a few months after his sixth birthday, his stepmother was a gifted musician with whom he evidently shared the manuscript book of keyboard music given her by his father. Born in Weimar, one of the most cultivated small towns in Germany, he grew up in Leipzig, site of the region's leading university and a major trade center. A fortunate choice to leave Saxony for university studies in Prussia led him to its capital city Berlin, where he soon received a royal appointment at Europe's most dynamic court. He spent three decades there, then concluded his career as municipal music director and cantor in Hamburg, one of northern Europe's greatest and freest cultural and commercial centers.

Bach did not fail to meet the expectations that might be held for the recipient of such good fortune. In a career lasting over half a century, he composed more than a thousand works of almost every type. His comprehensive treatise on keyboard playing went through several editions, helping to make him the most influential musician in northern Europe.