Sebastian Bach

. In the present case he had a real grievance in the appointment of a son as successor to the old capellmeister, whose work Bach had done for a long time and the reversion of whose office he migh

eport, and in 1717 was invited to take

nt of his peculiar art, dedicated to the service of the church, in favour of the writing of suites for strings or clavichord, hardly needs apology, it remains remarkable that Bach consented to take a position in which church music or even organ-playing had no place. In no one of the three churches in Coethen had he any control; perhaps he was not sorry in the present case, si

sic the loving worship he had not yet consecrated to a woman. He cultivated his art with an eager enthusiasm, sang a full bass, and was no mean performer on violin, viola-da-gamba, and clavichord. He welcomed Bach as a brother i

tant places, and the obedient capellmeister sometimes perhaps a little ennuyé, if we may credit a story which relates that on one of these journeys he consoled himself for the lack of all musical instruments by striking off the great

bition. His days were divided between his house and the music-room of the castle; and he only came into contact with the musical society outside by the custom which he still maintained of employing his holiday in the autumn to visit towns where he was known, where he was invited to try org

know from the recollection of it which the second son, Philipp Emanuel, then a child of six, bore more than thirty years later. His tender, flexible nature reflected hers closely, as his elder brother Friedemann's robust vigour did that of his father. And the fact that the two most striking figures, as

se when not violent. At present he was only the hopeful eldest son, for whose sake Bach developed a complete scheme of musical training, beginning with a Clavier-Büchlein of easy pieces, as early as January, 1720. There is an air of tenderness for the small fingers he loved, and longed to educate, in the ladder of difficulties he so carefully constructed, and in the little preface, in nomine Jesu. This was followed by Inventions in two and three parts, designed to cultivate an equable strength and free motion in all the fingers. The title was apparently chosen to indicate that beyond this he sought to teach in these pieces the elements of musical taste, invention in the scholastic sense being a compound of just disposition of the members and appropriate expression.25 The third stage in the course o

ved by the string of distinguished names that appear among his scholars and by the unbroken succession of pupils whom he had in his house from his marriage almost to his death, the applicants increasing in his later days until he was continually forced to turn them back. To his chosen pupils he was kind and genial, and full of encouragement. You have five as good fingers on each hand as I have, was his answer to complaints of difficulty. He never set himself up as a mo

ven months. Sebastian was more patient, waited nearly a year and a half, and chose wisely. His new wife, Anna Magdalena Wuelken, held a position as sin

besides this her clear well-formed hand, closely resembling Bach's, occurs constantly in the collections of his manuscripts. On his side he helped her to master the clavichord. Two Clavier-Büchleins, written for her, exist in his autograph, and to judge by their handsome bindings and the inscriptions in them, were intended as gifts to her, one just after their marri

of Kuhnau, the learned and original cantor of the Thomasschule at Leipzig, offered to him an opportunity of returning to that work in the service of the church for which he must have longed all these years. He left Coethen in the summer of 1723, having first composed two church cantatas, as evidence of his fitness for the post. It is probable that, in the hope of the election taking place before Easter, he wrote the S. John Passion Music to grace his arrival, as though to prove that

e orchestra. We may therefore here enumerate the compositions that belong to these classes, reserving for the present the great collections of fugues contained in the Wohltemperirte Clavie

he suites, or sets of pieces in dance-measures, which are moulded upon Italian models. Both alike are adapted by Bach to the clavichord in such a manner that they are completely natur

imar

, G minor, and B minor (211, p.

minor, Gr minor and major (210,

212, p. 14; the fourth in MS. at Berlin), together with two, in A a

known one in B flat of which the subject is on the (German) notes contained in the name

then P

a in C minor

r (the famous Chromatic Fantasia), B fl

sharp minor and C mi

, series v. 8. 3), and two sets of twelve and si

in C, and two in D minor (200,

inor, E minor, and two in A minor

pzig P

nor (208, p. 22; 207, p. 32 and 212, p. 22,

p. 36) in which the idea of the invention (or sinfonia) is treated on a much larger scale.27 The duets were

composition, headed alla maniera Italiana (215, p. 10), the other a great series of thirty v

y suite, in F, bears traces of having been written at Weimar (215, p. 25). At Leipzig Bach produced six Great Suites, known as the English (203, 204), and a

t name, being distinguished as the Italian Concerto (207, p. 4). It is remarkable that it should bear a designation properly true of an orchestral composition, as though in prevision of the unlimited development of which the form was susceptible.30 But the feeble internal resources of the clavichord, Bach's chosen instrument for study-the harpsichord was too hard, and the infant pianoforte too coarse for him-prevented him from himself following up the c

s church music at Leipzig asked only for a band of twenty. It is wholly uncertain how far it was usual, or considered necessary, to multiply with the parts; in any case chance might often reduce the small orchestra to numbers mo

g as many as four. For the harpsichord there exists six; for two harpsichords two, and for three again two. In another concer

piece for two violins, for violin and hautboy, for two flut

1 and four parties or suites which rank among the most flexible and melodious of all Bach's creations.32 The list would

, flute and violin,33 and two violins. For harpsichord and flute there are six sonatas; for harpsichord and violin a like number

e, the other for his own invention, the viola pomposa, and by the memorable sets, of six sonatas each, for

e introduced a great reform, that of tuning on a basis of equal temperament. Without such a reform his chromatic music, and notably his Chromatic Fantasia and the Wohltemperirte Clavier, would have been impossible. Another instance of his fastidious taste is that no one but himself cou

r of the modern art of piano-playing. It is said of him that he "played with so easy and small a motion of the fingers that it was hardly perceptible. Only the first joints of the fingers were in motion; the hand retained, even in the most difficult passages, its rounded form; the fingers rose very little from the keys, hardly more than