Part 28

Bach had been nearsighted from his childhood and was afflicted in later years with a weakness of the eyes, which was doubtless occasioned by the strain of his night labors as a youth. An English oculist named Taylor, the same who afterwards treated Handel in London, came to Leipsic in the winter of 1749, and, yielding to the advice of his friends, Bach submitted to an operation, which proved unsuccessful and he became totally blind. Nor was this the only sad result, for the medical treatment prescribed at the same time completely undermined his hitherto unfailing strength. On the eighteenth of July he suddenly found his sight restored, but was, however, stricken with apoplexy immediately afterward, and on the evening of the 28th of July, he died. His work was continued until within a few days before the event, and a choral "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit" ("Before Thy throne herewith I come"), which he dictated to his son-in-law, was his last composition. His funeral took place on the morning of the 31st of July in St. John's Church. Of the children left behind, two of the sons were taken in charge by their brothers and sisters, the others were already established in independent positions outside of Leipsic. The widow, who had three daughters to support, fell into poverty and lived finally upon public benevolence. It is an indelible stain upon the honor of the town of Leipsic that this was permitted.

Together with his wonderful gifts as an artist, Bach united great clearness and acuteness of intellect, strength of will, a persistency which often amounted to obstinacy, the love for order and a high sense of duty. Like all artists, he possessed an irritable temperament, and was liable to passionate outbreaks, but in the main his demeanor was grave and dignified. Though conscious of his worth, he was free from arrogance. He provided generously for his family and his home life was a happy one, nothing affording him more pleasure than the little concerts which he conducted with his wife and children, assisted occasionally by talented pupils. If he sometimes manifested violent excitement when giving instruction to large school classes, he exercised great patience with individual pupils, and showed a happy faculty for teaching them. Instead of oppressing them by the excess of his genius, he drew them up to himself with words of friendly encouragement, and it is certain that he could hold up to them no better example than his own unwearied industry. Among the large number of distinguished artists trained by him are Johann Ludwig Krebs, Gottfried August Homilius, Johann Friedrich Agricola, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Johann Theophilus Goldberg, Johann Gottfried Müthel; also his own sons, Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christoph Friedrich. The education of the last he was unable to complete. His latest pupil was Johann Christian Kittel, afterwards organist in Erfurt, who, through his great gifts as a teacher, kept alive in Thuringia for several generations the art of Sebastian Bach. He died in 1809.

The old inherited love of race was strongly characteristic of Johann Sebastian. We owe to him a manuscript genealogy of the Bach family, which is now preserved in the royal library at Berlin. The first number is from the hand of Sebastian himself, while the remainder of the work was performed by his son, Philipp Emanuel. The philanthropic and self-sacrificing spirit manifested by Bach towards his pupils was still more fully exemplified in the circle of his family. In the year 1707 he bestowed upon a cousin in needy circumstances a part of his slender salary. While in Weimar, he took into his house a son of his eldest brother, thus requiting the kindness which he had received from the latter as a boy. In Cöthen he devoted himself energetically and with true filial affection to the fulfilment of an honored relative's testamentary bequests, against his own interests and in opposition to the grasping demands of her next of kin. All that we know of Bach's life presents him to us in the light of a strong and noble nature and confirms us in the belief that the truly great artist must as a man always be profoundly worthy of our veneration.

That in Bach we behold the highest degree of development attained by a race of musicians who flourished through many generations, is due to his wonderful and manifold musical gifts, rather than to his having followed directly in the footsteps of any of the more important composers among his ancestors. He was endowed with a talent for composition of the very first order, has not been excelled as a performer upon the organ and the clavier up to the present day, and was a violin player of the profoundest intelligence, exhibiting complete mastery over the technique of his instrument. At the same time he had a thorough knowledge of organ-building and also distinguished himself by the invention of a new stringed instrument, called the "viola pomposa", and a keyed instrument which was an ingenious combination of the lute and the cembalo. He devised the first perfectly satisfactory method of tuning a clavier according to the tempered system, and introduced the style of fingering, which, with a few modifications, is now in use. But the particular musical form in which his uncle Johann Christoph Bach, of Eisenach, became so great a master--the motet--while cultivated to some extent by Sebastian Bach, was developed differently by him, and his immediate predecessors in the art which made him especially great were not found among the men of his own race.

Bach is first of all a composer of organ music as employed in the domain of the church, and his work must be viewed from this standpoint, if we are to judge him aright. The original foundation of organ music in Germany had been the ecclesiastical Volkslied, or Protestant choral. This does not mean that the melody of a choral was played from beginning to end upon the organ, but that it was made the central point of an independently constructed work, an arrangement possible to be effected in three different ways. Firstly: the choral was played in direct combination with the organ accompaniment, in a way to introduce the congregational singing as the principal feature; in this case a few lines only were worked out in free, contrapuntal style, so as to acquire the character of an improvisation. We see here the choral prelude in its most restricted form. In the second place, the choral was treated as an independent piece of music and resolved into its elementary parts, each one of which was worked out for itself, the composer being influenced in a general way by the poetic sentiment of the text and allowing the musical form to be determined by the relation which the separate lines of the melody bore to each other. Thirdly: the choral, as it left the composer's hands, seemed to him the expression of the poetical thoughts and sensations embodied by the text, and, if played merely by one person, he regarded it as the form in which the assembled congregation gave utterance to its feelings; the choral melody then became the middle point of an independent composition, one part of which moved majestically and solemnly onward, while to the others was entrusted the office of expressing the delicate and personal emotions awakened in the breast of the composer.

By the side of these choral compositions, which, as we have seen, are founded upon a given melody, stand other important forms of music in the seventeenth century: the toccata, the praeludium, the fugue and the passacaglio, or ciacone. While the two last-mentioned proceed from the free invention of the composer, yet here also the Volkslied has exerted its influence, as can easily be seen from the nature of the fugal themes, which are much more expressive and definite than those employed by the Catholics, because with the latter the strong attraction for the Volkslied was wanting. The two greatest organ masters directly preceding Bach were Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Pachelbel. The latter was born in Nuremberg in 1653 and died there in 1706, while holding the position of organist.

He had been actively at work in Eisenach and Erfurt for thirteen years, gave instruction to Bach's oldest brother and exercised a great influence upon organ music in Thuringia and upon Bach himself in his earlier years. That poetic treatment of the organ choral already described owes its origin to Pachelbel, whose strength lay chiefly in this form of art. Buxtehude's forte, on the other hand, is pre-eminently a free style of composition for the organ and a brilliant artistic handling of the instrument, in contrast to which the thorough, but unpretending technique of Pachelbel falls into the background. All the creative power possessed by these two masters, Bach combined in his own person.

Over one hundred organ chorals by Bach are still extant and a large proportion of them are in his own handwriting. A fine collection of forty-five shorter pieces is presented by his "Orgelbüchlein" (Little Organ Book). The compilation of this was made in Cöthen, but the greater part of its contents belongs to the Weimar period. The pieces are almost wholly in Pachelbel's manner, but are more characteristic, richer and of greater depth. The melody always moves on uninterruptedly and, with few exceptions, in the simple style adapted to congregational singing. The other parts are artistically interwoven and reflect the particular sensations which the significance of the choral melody in the church liturgy and the import of the poem to which it belongs awaken in the mind. The musical thought from which the accompanying parts are developed is usually brief; it takes its character from the poem, into the meaning of which Bach penetrates very deeply. The effect is especially beautiful when he reproduces in his music the idea of certain visions, which have been called up by the poem. An example of this is furnished by the choral: "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar" ("From Heaven came the Angel Host"), in which two of the accompanying parts with their ascending and descending strains seem to personify the Christmas angels coming down to the shepherds and again soaring upward. A favorite plan of Bach for increasing in an artistic manner the importance of the choral melody, is that of managing it after the fashion of a canon; that is to say, it is heard not merely in a single part, but recurs in another, after a certain interval, an arrangement from which surprisingly expressive harmonies result.

Besides the "Little Organ Book," we possess a second autograph collection by Bach, containing sixteen organ chorals, interspersed with several pieces of the same order written by his pupil Altnikol. In this volume are included the most noteworthy of the more extended organ chorals composed during the Weimar period; these however were not published until they had undergone the careful revision of the artist and received many changes from his hand. Here we find model compositions in all the larger forms, which either came down to Bach from his predecessors, or were acquired by his own continually increasing culture. His constant and energetic efforts to attain the greatest possible organic unity in his compositions naturally obliged him to place the strongest emphasis upon the development of the polyphonic web of the melodic accompaniment from a single musical thought. If this thought became expanded into a longer and more expressive theme, worked out according to the rules of art, the accompaniment was then likely to acquire an independence and importance which interfered with the predominance of the choral melody. The sole means therefore of strengthening this melody was to introduce a vocal part, and that is precisely what was done by Bach. While he added to the composition thus changed, other instruments besides the organ and also other vocal parts, he transferred the organ chorus to the domain of vocal music, in order that he might give it the grandest conceivable form. Bach's choral choruses, which excite the astonished admiration of all who know them, are the direct outgrowth of his organ chorals. The piece from the "Little Organ Book" consisting of twenty-seven measures, composed upon the melody, "O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig" ("O, Innocent Lamb of God"), and the gigantic opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, in which the same melody is accompanied and crowned by two vocal choruses, two orchestras and two organs, rest upon exactly the same principle of construction.

Buxtehude had paid no attention to the third method of developing the choral, as previously described, but bestowed much thought and artistic skill upon the second, and had succeeded in imparting to it an especial charm, through tasteful ornamentation of the melody and the combination of several different kinds of organ registers. His works in this line, however, are not distinguished by any especial unity or by reserve of form. Bach felt himself attracted by this free and more fantastic style of composition, because it stimulated him to evolve from it something which should satisfy his own lofty ideal. A number of highly remarkable organ chorals, of the most dissimilar character, originated in this way; among them are the elaborations of "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele" ("Adorn thyself, beloved Soul"), "An Wasserflüssen Babylon," two re-arrangements of "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr" ("Glory alone to God on High"), and one of "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland."

In the Leipsic period, few organ chorals were composed by Bach, but each one of these is a master work of the musician. The forms are those of the Weimar chorals, but are on a comparatively colossal scale and the art of the composer has increased in corresponding measure. They were published in the year 1739, together with several choral fugues in the third part of his so-called "Clavier-Uebung"; in 1746 were issued five variations in canonic form upon the Christmas song: "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" ("From Heaven on high come I hither"). Bach's strong attachment for this artistic form, over which he had gained entire mastery in his youth, continued to the end. His last work, composed immediately before his death and dictated to Altnikol, was an organ choral.

In Bach's organ music of a freer style, it is easier than in the chorals to perceive the gradual approach to perfection. Here it is very evident that Pachelbel was not his master; even the few preludes and fugues which he wrote in his first years at Arnstadt betray a study of Buxtehude. After the journey to Lübeck, what had before been imitation became free creation after the manner of his model. In Weimar, where he rose to eminence as an organ virtuoso, the striving after external brilliancy and the desire of developing his skill as a performer in all directions, bear evidence for a considerable period of his continued adherence to the style of the Danish master. Although the compositions of this time are in no wise superficial, they yet stand far below his later works in solidity. By degrees, and evidently in consequence of close and persevering labor with the choral, Bach's melodies become much richer and more expressive. The study of Italian music, to which he devoted himself in Weimar, had the effect of imparting to his work greater clearness and finish, and his beautiful "_canzone_" for the organ is the direct result of that study. The name itself bears witness to the fact, since the Italians of the seventeenth century were accustomed to designate by this word the musical form which afterwards was called the fugue. In a group of organ compositions, which manifestly belong to the later Weimar period, Bach shows himself to have reached that eminence as a composer of fugues which only he was able to attain. The greatest skill in execution is everywhere presupposed, but nothing is sacrificed to this; the fugal themes are forms of a strongly accentuated type; in the management of the parts great restraint and system are displayed; the preludes also lose their extemporaneous character, are given a real theme and subjected to the rules of the contrapuntal style. The only organ passacaglio by Bach was composed at about this time. Well knowing that Buxtehude had excelled in this form he resolved to make an attempt in that direction, summoned all his powers and created one of the most lofty works of German tonal art.

At the time when Bach's playing excited the general admiration of the Hamburg public in 1720, he probably performed there his great G-minor fugue with prelude, one of his best known and most celebrated works. A musician of the eighteenth century pronounced this to be "the very best pedal piece of Herr Johann Sebastian Bach," and it is certainly safe to assert that he never wrote one which surpassed it. Play of imagination, inexhaustible invention, transparent clearness, unaffected simplicity, lofty earnestness and deep inward joy are here combined to form a whole of such unapproachable grandeur as to exclude every thought of a comparison with other composers. Among the works of the Leipsic period should be mentioned first of all the six sonatas for two manuals and pedal. These were completed between the years 1727 and 1733 and, according to tradition, were intended for the education of the musician's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The form of these pieces, as is well known, is borrowed from the Italian chamber music. Properly speaking, they are not intended for the organ, but for a pedal-clavier with two manuals, yet they do not lose in effect, when played upon the former instrument. They present the most difficult of tasks to the organ-performer, not only because the most perfect independence of movement is demanded of both hands, as well as the feet, but also on account of the crystalline transparency of the three-part movement which renders the smallest defect in execution extremely painful to the ear. The six so-called "great preludes and fugues" (Edition of the Bach Society, Vol. XV., p. 189-260) are also considered as belonging to the Leipsic time, although no positive external evidence in favor of the assumption can be produced. If we add to these the preludes and fugues in G major, the toccata and fugue in F major, the "Doric" toccata and fugue in D minor and the great prelude with fugue in E♭ major, we shall have nearly exhausted the list of works composed by Bach during the latest period of his life. Should this seem to any one a small amount for so great an artist to accomplish in twenty-seven years, he must remember that the principal object of Bach's activity throughout this period was the vocal church music, which, as cantor of St. Thomas's, it was his duty to provide each Sunday. The value of works of art, moreover, is not to be estimated by their number or extent. Haydn wrote over one hundred symphonies, Beethoven only nine, yet the composer of "Fidelio" certainly does not rank below Haydn in importance. These later organ pieces of Bach's are creations of a universal type. Into each one of them the artist infused the whole of his giant intellect, animating by the breath of his genius the masses of sound poured forth from the organ in prodigious volume, yet governed in the smallest details by the most rigorous rules of art. They are true and actual prototypes of the divinely ordered processes of nature, and in listening to them one calls to mind the profound saying of Goethe: "Bach's music produces in me the feeling that the eternal harmonies are holding converse together as they may have done in the bosom of God before the creation."

The term chamber music was borrowed by the Germans from the Italians, with whom "_musica da camera_" was directly opposed to "_musica da chiesa_." In German it might be more appropriate to say "society music." We are accustomed in our day to think only of instrumental music in this connection, but it was the original intention to include vocal compositions as well. Works of both kinds were produced by Bach, but however interesting his vocal chamber music may be, it is of only secondary importance, relatively speaking. He must himself have been of this opinion, for he frequently made re-arrangements of these compositions (which were mostly written for particular occasions), and thus converted them into church music. His instrumental works, on the other hand, are of the highest importance, not only for their intrinsic merit, but as a means of determining the permanent artistic standing of the composer. In considering them, it is necessary to distinguish between such as are especially derived from organ music, those which grew out of Italian violin music, and the remaining portion, which found their origin in the exclusive domain of the clavier. In a general way at least, the style of organ music exercised great influence upon all three of the varieties mentioned; Bach made it his point of departure and it formed through his whole life the basis of his work.