Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/231

Rh the Thomasschule, whose council did not regret his death, and, like the Leipzig newspapers, did not even mention it in its annual opening address. It refused the small customary pension to his widow, who died in 1760 in a condition of indigence. Fortunately Bach had trained a number of scholarly pupils, to say nothing of his sons, who cherished a pious recollection of his teaching. But how was he known twenty years after his death? As a great organist and a masterly teacher. Burney remembers him when he passes through Leipzig, but only to cite the opinion of Quantz, who said of Bach "that this able artist had brought the art of playing the organ to the highest degree of perfection." He adds:

Observe the position of the epithet "admirable." In 1770 the "admirable Bach" is Philipp Emmanuel Bach. He is the great man of the family. And Burney goes into raptures over the fashion in which "this sublime musician" had contrived to train himself.