He was step-brother to Clara Schumann, his mother being the divorced wife of Friedrich Wieck. As a child he was taught to play piano, violin and organ and taught counterpoint by Siegfried Dehn. At the age of 18, on the advice of his brother-in-law, Robert Schumann, he studied for 2 years at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his teachers included Moscheles and Gade, and where Mendelssohn was principle. He returned to Berlin in 1850, where he remained teaching and composing. In 1859 he was appointed Professor at the Cologne Conservatory. 1865 he became Kapellmeister and director of the School of Music in Rotterdam. 1874 he moved to the Königliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin as Professor of Composition, the director at the time being Josef Joachim. His compositions were all technically well written, but lack personality and are conservative in idiom. Despite some respect during the XIX century, he was probably described best by Hugo Riemann who observed that in Bargiel the Romantic Movement had reached the ranks of the Academicians.