complete idea is formed from it. These two modes of construction are traced at greater length in the concluding essay in this work on "The Typical Musical Forms," and the student will do well to fortify himself from time to time by reference to that chapter.

In all the programs of this course there is one caution which the student will do well to observe: All kinds of technical analysis of art-works put the hearer in a mood essentially different from that necessary for properly enjoying the works as art. Every art work is intended to awaken an artistic delight after its kind. In painting, a delight in form and color, and in some a kind of suggestion or story by means of them. In music, a delight in tone and tonal relations and rhythm, and always a sense of tonal beauty, with a strong flavor of feeling awakened by means of them. This entire expression of musical masterworks belongs to the unconscious operation of mind, and the hearer who occupies himself with the effort to recognize all the various devices and artifices of the composer, and to follow the form as such, or who occupies himself mainly with the idea of the story which the composer is trying to tell, puts himself in a wrong attitude for deriving the most complete gratification from the work. In a cultivated realization of the beauty of a great musical masterwork, these perceptions of technical skill on the part of the composer no doubt enter to some degree, but they are always more or less in the background, and form a part of the actual pleasure of hearing the symphony or the sonata scarcely more than the capital initials and punctuation marks enter into the enjoyment of a poem. All the incidents of punctuation and typography we take instinctively, and are conscious of them only when some one of them is missing and an error exists in the work. This is the case with music. Symmetry and flow of imagination are presupposed. Hence, whatever analyses may be made in the class as a part of the operation of studying these different master-works, the end to be sought by the student is the enjoyment of the work as music; to take an active and lively pleasure in the melody; to feel the harmony and the rhythm; to enjoy the contrast of the different moods, and so on. Every piece in the entire list is a voice in which the composer speaks to us, and the question is not the How, but the What.

CHAPTER II.

BACH AND HÄNDEL.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH.

Born March 21, 1685, at Eisenach.
Died July 28, 1750, in Leipsic.

Johann Sebastian Bach was the son of the city musician of Eisenach, and a descendant of about ten generations of musical Bachs. His father having died when the boy was young, the latter's brother, Johann Christoph, gave him lessons for some time, after which he studied with other masters of considerable celebrity, and at the age of seventeen he was engaged as violinist in the private orchestra of Prince John Ernst, of Saxe-Weimar. He held this place, however, for but a few months, leaving it to accept a more desirable one as organist in the new church at Arnstadt. During the time he held this position he made several journeys on foot to Lübeck to hear the famous Buxtehude play, and later paid the same compliment to another eminent organist. The most important of the early positions which Bach held was that of director of chamber music, and organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and here, after seven years' service, he was made chief concertmeister. In 1717 he left Weimar to accept a position as musical director at Köthen, where he had a better opportunity to express himself with orchestra. In 1723 be became cantor of the St. Thomas School at Leipsic and music director of the university, as the successor of Johannes Kuhnau. In this position he had the direction of the music in the St. Thomas Church, where he had at his disposal an orchestra, organ, and two choirs, besides which he trained the school-children. He here wrote an enormous amount of church music, consisting of a very large number of cantatas for church service, of which first and last he seems to have produced five entire series for every festival Sunday in the year. These cantatas were short oratorios consisting of choruses, solos, recitatives, instrumental movements, and were frequently of considerable elaboration. Many of them are now lost, but a very considerable number remain. He also composed five oratorios for the Good Friday season—Passion music—of which three yet remain, the most famous one being the "St. Matthew's Passion."

Joh. Sebastian Bach, Geo. Fred. Händel

Bach was married twice, and had, in all, eleven sons and nine daughters, of whom six sons and four daughters survived him. As a practical musician Bach excelled upon the violin, the organ, and the clavier, and he left a very large number of works in all three of these departments, works which still remain the admiration of musicians the world over. His genius was unquestioned in his own lifetime, and the memory of it remained lively even during the fifty years following his death when very few of his works were accessible.

The most complete biography of Bach is the large work by Spitta, in three volumes, in which the entire life-history of this great master, and all the circumstances amid which he worked, his discouragements, and what he accomplished, have been traced with most patient and loving care.

The list of Bach's compositions includes three sonatas and three partitas (generally classed as six sonatas) for violin alone; six sonatas for violin and piano, a large quantity of chamber music of one sort and another, a few orchestral suites, and about ten large volumes of music for the clavier and for the organ.

GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL.

Born February 23, 1685, at Halle.
Died April 14, 1759, in London.

Händel was the son of a surgeon and it was the wish of his father to educate him to his own profession, but the inclination to music was so strong that it was impossible to prevent him from following it, and, accordingly, he had the best training it was possible to get in the vicinity. When the boy was eleven years old he was taken to Berlin and placed under the instruction of Bononcini and Ariosti, Italian music being then the style at the Prussian court. At the age of sixteen young Händel had obtained a position as organist, and he was also a fine clavecin player and a good violinist. A few years later we find him at Hamburg, where he played the clavecin in the orchestra and was sometimes conductor. Here he produced several operas—"Nero," "Daphne," "Florindo," "Almira"—with so much success that in 1707 he made a journey to Italy for further perfecting himself in the Italian style. Accordingly he spent some months in Florence, three months in Rome, thence back to Florence to produce a new opera, and by the new year of 1708 he was in Venice, where his second Italian opera, "Agrippina," was produced. From Venice he went again to Rome, where he wrote two short oratorios for Cardinal Ottoboni.

He had already made the acquaintance in Venice of Scarlatti, Corelli, and of Antonio Lotti. He accompanied the Scarlattis to Naples and remained with them about a year, and there was great rivalry in regard to the harpsichord playing of Händel and Domenico Scarlatti. This success made Händel's name so celebrated that it led to his being invited to London, where he went in 1712 to bring out some operas. He liked London so well that he remained there all the rest of his life. During a part of this time he was himself the manager of the opera,