Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/421

BACH. household. Bach possessed at his death five instruments of the clavichord family, and many stringed instruments. It is likely that his two concertos for three pianos were written for himself to play with his two eldest sons; several of his church cantatas doubtless were written for his wife and daughter, and there can be no question that the opportunity for music in his congenial household greatly stimulated his faculties for composition. Thus at least part of that famous work, The Well-tempered Clavichord, had its origin in Bach's desire to give his sons a thorough course of instruction; and the so-called French Suites are among the pieces he wrote for his wife while he was teaching her the clavichord. It was Emanuel who, after becoming a kapellmeister in Berlin, brought about, in 1747, the famous meeting between Bach and Frederick the Great. As soon as the King heard of the composer's arrival, he exclaimed, &ldquo;Gentlemen, old Bach is here!&rdquo; and Bach, in his traveling clothes, was immediately summoned into his Majesty's presence. The King had 15 pianofortes in different rooms, and on these Bach improvised and developed in various ways a theme proposed by the King. The composer, who was treated with great distinction, wrote as a souvenir of his visit his Musical Offering, a series of compositions on the King's theme. Bach's labors were unremitting almost up to his death. His Art of Fugue, begun probably in 1749, was barely finished when he set to work at a fugue planned on a colossal scale and introducing as one of the subjects his own name in German notation (B. A. C. H., corresponding to our B-flat, A, C, and B). An affliction of his eyesight which soon resulted in total blindness, stopped the work. Ten days before he died, his eyesight suddenly was restored for a short time. His blindness returning, he called his son-in-law Altnikol to him and dictated music for the chorale, When We Are in the Depths of Need. Later, feeling the hand of Death upon him, he had Altnikol change the inscription to Herewith I Come Before Thy Throne. He died Tuesday, July 28, 1750. The only public notice of the event was a brief minute of the fact entered by the Town Council. His widow was allowed to die a pauper; and when Saint John's churchyard, where he was buried, became part of a road, his bones were exhumed and scattered.

Bach is the fountain-head of German music. It is due to him that German music is polyphonic; that its ideals have been lofty; that its masters have shown an intellectual grasp of their art which has given a certain sameness to their method of expressing their emotions; and that they have aimed at the sublime and profound rather than at the superficially, though immediately, effective. In all the qualities which go to make up a serious, self-sacrificing, and deeply conscientious devotion of genius to art for art's sake. Bach set an example which has been as a guiding star to his successors. No man was better qualified than the Leipzig cantor to lay broad and deep the foundations of a great school. To him German music owes the richness of harmony, the skillful leading of parts, which, without interfering with melodic beauty, are among its characteristics. Gathering up all the threads of the Contrapuntal School, developing all its forms until he obtained complete mastery of them and carried them to a point beyond which they could

not be advanced farther, Bach forms in himself the sum and substance, the very climax, of his school and epoch. The great masters who came after him inherited the technique of his school complete, and applying it to new forms brought their own schools to perfection. Wagner has voiced his admiration for Bach. Even Chopin, the most romantic of composers, was a close student of Bach. Brahms's knowledge of Bach is too obvious to need more than mention; so that Bach's influence is seen to extend to the composer whose music constitutes the very latest inspired utterance in established musical forms. Nor have the great masters of German music, besides Wagner, been slow in expressing their admiration of the Altmeister. Mozart gave utterance to his high opinion of Bach's music; Beethoven eagerly embraced the opportunity to subscribe to a fund for the support of one of Bach's daughters. The movement which led to a more general public appreciation of Bach was started by Mendelssohn with a performance of the Saint Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829; and Schumann was prominent in founding the Bach Gesellschaft for the collection and publication of the master's works. The erection of the Bach Monument in Leipzig in 1842 was due largely to Mendelssohn's efforts.

Bach is regarded by organists as the greatest composer for their instrument. In the Lutheran Church, while the congregation sustained the melody of a chorale, the organist was supposed to vary the harmonies. Bach's skill at this was prodigious. He collected no less than 240 chorales for use in his household; 138 have come down to us in print, besides those found in his church cantatas and other large works. His fame as an organ composer rests chiefly, however, upon his preludes, toccatas, fantasias, and fugues. Among these organ compositions should be mentioned the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (&lsquo;Giant&rsquo;), probably played by Bach in 1720 in Hamburg in Reinken's presence; the D minor Toccata and Fugue (Doris); the E minor Fugue which is built upon chromatic intervals; and the E Flat or Saint Ann Fugue; besides the Passacaglia in C minor. No less an authority than Guilman has expressed the opinion that there has been no progress in organ composition since Bach, because Bach's achievements in that branch are the highest possible, and as modern to-day, both in the technical equipment they demand of the player and in the effect they produce, as when they were composed. Bach's most generally known works probably are the D minor Toccata and Fugue, arranged by Tausig; the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (D minor) for pianoforte, and the Well-tempered Clavichord (Wohltemperirtes Clavier): the two former because they are found in the repertory of every great pianist, the last (48 preludes and fugues through all the major and minor keys), because some acquaintance with it is considered indispensable to a pianist's education. Beethoven mastered it at the age of 11. This famous work, composed partly in 1722, partly about 1740, did not see publication until 1799, nearly 50 years after Bach's death, when it was brought out in London. Art of Fugue, begun the year before Bach's death, consists of 15 fugues and 4 canons upon a theme in D minor. Besides a fairly long list of other works for pianofortes,