pleasure in the concert room, church, or theatre, remember the agreeable impression they created, and purchase them when published, even though they cannot always play them. But Bach's works unfortunately are rarely heard nowadays; for the number of persons capable of playing them adequately is at best inconsiderable. It would have been otherwise had Bach given touring performances of his music,9 a labour for which he had neither time nor liking. Many of his pupils did so, and though their skill was inferior to their master's, the admiration [pg xxvii] and astonishment they excited revealed the grandeur of his compositions. Here and there, too, were found persons who desired to hear on their own instrument pieces which the performer had played best or gave them most pleasure. They could do so more easily for having heard how the piece ought to sound.

But, to awaken a wide appreciation of musical masterpieces depends upon the existence of good teachers. The want of them is our chief difficulty. In order to safeguard their credit, the ignorant and incompetent of their number are disposed to decry good music, lest they should be asked to play it. Consequently, their pupils, condemned to spend time, labour, and money on second-rate material, will not after half a dozen years, perhaps, show themselves farther advanced in sound musical appreciation than they were at the outset. Whereas, under a good teacher, half the time, labour, and money produces progressive improvement. Time will show whether this obstacle can be surmounted by making Bach's works accessible in the music shops and by forming a Society among the admirers of his genius to make them known and promote their study.10

[pg xxviii]

At any rate, if music is really an art, and not a mere pastime, its masterpieces must be more widely known and performed than in fact they are. And here Bach, prince of classic composers, can render yeoman service.11 For his music is so well calculated to educate the student to distinguish what is trivial from what is good, and to comport himself as an artist in whatever branch of the art he makes his own. Moreover, Bach, whose influence pervades every musical form, can be relied on more than any other composer to correct the superficiality which is the bane of modern taste. Neglect of the classics is as prejudicial to the art of music as it would be fatal to the interests of general culture to banish Greek and Latin writers from our schools. Modern taste exhibits no shame in its preference for agreeable trifles, in its neglect of everything that makes a demand, however slight, upon its attention. To-day we are menaced by a proposal [pg xxix] to banish the classics from our schoolrooms. Equally short-sighted vision threatens to extinguish our musical classics as well. And is it surprising? Modern art displays such poverty and frivolity that it well may shrink from putting itself in context with great literature, particularly with Bach's mighty and creative genius, and seek rather to proscribe it.

I fain would do justice to the sublime genius of this prince of musicians, German and foreign! Short of being such a man as he was, dwarfing all other musicians from the height of his superiority, I can conceive no greater distinction than the power to comprehend and interpret him to others.12 The ability to do so must at least connote a temperament not wholly alien from his own. It may even hint the flattering prospect that, if circumstances had opened up the same career, similar results might have been forthcoming. I am not presumptuous to suggest such a result in my own case. On the contrary I am convinced that there are no words adequate to express the thoughts Bach's transcendent genius stirs one to utter. The more intimately we are acquainted with it the greater must be our admiration. Our utmost eulogy, our deepest expressions of homage, [pg xxx] must seem little more than well-meant prattle. No one who is familiar with the work of other centuries will contradict or hold my statement exaggerated, that Bach cannot be named except in tones of rapture, and even of devout awe, by those who have learnt to know him. We may discover and lay bare the secrets of his technique. But his power to inspire into it the breath of genius, the perfection of life and charm that moves us so powerfully, even in his slightest works, must always remain extraordinary and insoluble.

I do not choose to compare Bach with other artists. Whoever is interested to measure him with Handel will find a just and balanced estimate of their relative merits, written by one fully informed for the task, in the first number of the eighty-first volume of the Universal German Library, pages 295-303.13

So far as it is not derived from the short article in Mizler's Library already mentioned,14 I am indebted for my information to the two eldest [pg xxxi] sons of Bach himself.15 Not only was I personally acquainted with them, but I corresponded regularly for many years with both,16 particularly Carl Philipp Emmanuel. The world knows them as great artists. But probably it is not aware that to the last moment of their lives they spoke of their father's genius with enthusiastic admiration.17 From my early