which was destined to make him change his opinion, and began to play it. But he had not proceeded far when he came to a passage at which he stopped. He looked at it, began anew, and again stopped at the same passage. 'No,' he called out to his friend, who was laughing to himself in the next room, at the same time going away from the instrument,' one cannot play everything at first sight; it is not possible.""

A few more extracts which speak for themselves.

"The clavichord and the organ are nearly related, but the style and mode of managing both instruments are as different as their respective destination. What sounds well, or expresses something on the clavichord, expresses nothing on the organ, and vice versa. The best player on the clavichord, if he is not duly acquainted with the difference in the destination and object of the two instruments, and does not know constantly how to keep it in view, will always be a bad performer on the organ, as indeed is usually the case. Hitherto I have met with only two exceptions. The one is John Sebastian himself, and the second his eldest son, William Friedemann. Both were elegant performers on the clavichord; but, when they came to the organ, no trace of the harpsichord player was to be perceived. Melody, harmony, motion, all was different; that is, all was adapted to the nature of the instrument and its destination. When I heard Will Friedemann on the harpsichord, all was delicate, elegant, and agreeable. When I heard him on the organ, I was seized with reverential awe. There, all was pretty, here, all was grand and solemn. The same was the case with John Sebastian, but both in a much higher degree of perfection. W. Friedemann was here but a child to his father, and he most frankly concurred in this opinion. The organ compositions of this extraordinary man are full of the expression of devotion, solemnity, and dignity; but his unpremeditated voluntaries on the organ, where nothing was lost in writing down, are said to have been still more devout, solemn, dignified, and sublime. What is it that is most essential in this art? I will say what I know; much, however, cannot be said, but must be felt."

Then after some excellent observations upon the organ, he says,

"Bach, even in his secular compositions, disdained every thing common; but in his compositions for the organ, he kept himself far more distant from it; so that here he does not appear like a man, but as a true disembodied spirit, who soars above everything mortal."

It does indeed seem, from all that is said of Bach on this score, that, as the organ was his proper instrument, and represents him, as the flute or violin might Mozart, so he that heard him on it enjoyed the sense of the true Miltonic Creation, thought too plenteous to be spoken of as rill, or stream, or fountain, but rolling and surging like a tide, marking its course by the large divisions of seas and continents.

I wish there was room to quote the fine story of the opera house at Berlin, p. 34, which shows how rapid and comprehensive was his intellectual sight in his own department; or the remarks on the nature of his harmony in that it was a multiplied melody, pp. 42, 43, or on the severe truth and dignity of his conduct to his pupils and the public, p. 76. But I must content myself with the following passages, which, beside, lose much by mutilation.

"The ideas of harmony and modulation can scarcely be separated, so nearly are they related to each other. And yet they are different. By harmony we must understand the concord or coincidence of the various parts; by modulation, their progression.

"In most composers you find that their modulation, or if you will, their harmony, advances slowly. In musical pieces to be executed by numerous performers, in large buildings, as, for example, in churches, where a loud sound can die away but slowly, this arrangement indisputably shows the prudence of a composer, who wishes to have his work produce the best possible effect. But in instrumental or chamber music, that slow progress is not a proof of prudence, but, far oftener, a sign that the composer was not sufficiently rich in ideas. Bach has distinguished this very well. In his great vocal compositions, he well knew how to repress his fancy, which, otherwise, overflowed with ideas; but, in his instrumental music this reserve was not necessary. As he, besides, never worked for the crowd, but always had in his mind his ideal of perfection, without any view to approbation or the like, he had no reason whatever for giving less than he had, and could give, and in fact he has never done this. Hence in the modulation of his instrumental works, every advance is a new thought, a constantly progressive life and motion, within the circle of the modes chosen, and those nearly related to them. Of the harmony which he adopts he retains the greatest part, but, at every advance he mingles

something related to it; and in this manner he proceeds to the end of a piece, so softly, so gently, and gradually, that no leap, or harsh transition is to be felt; and yet no bar (I may almost say, no part of a bar,) is like another. With him, every transition was required to have a connexion with the preceding idea, and appears to be a necessary consequence of it. He knew not, or rather he disdained those sudden sallies, by which many composers attempt to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatics, the advances are so soft and tender, that we scarcely perceive their distances, though often very great."

"In other departments he had rivals; but in the fugue, and all the kinds of canon and counterpoint related to it, he stands quite alone, and so alone, that all around him, is, as it were, desert and void.

*

*

It (his fugue) fulfils all the conditions which we are otherwise accustomed to demand, only of more free species of composition. A highly characteristic theme, an uninterrupted principal melody, wholly derived from it, and equally characteristic from the beginning to the end; not mere accompaniment in the other parts, but in each of them an independent melody, according with the others, also from the beginning to the end; freedom, lightness, and fluency in the progress of the whole, inexhaustible variety of modulation combined with perfect purity; the exclusion of every arbitrary note, not necessarily belonging to the whole; unity and diversity in the style, rhythmus, and measure; and lastly, a life diffused through the whole, so that it sometimes appears to the performer or hearer, as if every single note were animated; these are the properties of Bach's fugue,— properties which excite admiration and astonishment in every judge, who knows what a mass of intellectual energy is required for the production of such works. I must say still more. All Bach's fugues, composed in the years of his maturity, have the above-mentioned properties in common; they are all endowed with equally great excellencies, but each in a different manner. Each has his own precisely defined character; and dependent upon that, its own turns in melody and harmony. When we know and can perform one, we really know only one, and can perform but one; whereas we know and can play whole folios full of fugues by other composers of Bach's time, as soon as we have comprehended and rendered familiar to our hand, the turns of a single one."

He disdained any display of his powers. If they were made obvious otherwise than in the beauty and fullness of what was produced, it was in such a way as this.

“ In musical parties, where quartettes or other fuller pieces of instrumental music were performed, he took pleasure in playing the tenor. With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the middle of the harmony, whence he could both hear and enjoy it, on both sides. When an opportunity offered, in such parties, he sometimes accompanied a trio or other pieces on the harpsichord. If he was in a cheerful mood, and knew that the composer of the piece, if present, would not take it amiss, he used to make extempore out of the figured bass a new trio, or of three single parts a quartette. These, however, are the only cases in which he proved to others how strong he was.

"He was fond of hearing the music of other composers. If he heard in a church a fugue for a full orchestra, and one of his two eldest sons stood near him, he always, as soon as he had heard the introduction to the theme, said beforehand what the composer ought to introduce, and what possibly might be introduced. If the composer had performed his work well, what he had said happened; then he rejoiced, and jogged his son to make him observe it."

He did not publish a work till he was forty years of age. He never laid aside the critical file through all his life, so that an edition of his works, accompanied by his own corrections, would be the finest study for the musician.

This severe ideal standard, and unwearied application in realizing it, made his whole life a progress, and the epithet old, which too often brings to our minds associations of indolence or decay, was for him the title of honour. It is noble and imposing when Frederic the Second says to his courtiers, "with a kind of agitation, 'Gentlemen, Old Bach has come.'

"He laboured for himself, like every true genius; he fulfilled his own wish, satisfied his own taste, chose his subjects according to his own opinion, and lastly, derived the most pleasure from his own approbation. The applause of connoisseurs could not then fail him, and, in fact, never did fail him. How else could a real work of art be produced? The artist, who endeavours to make his works so as to suit some particular class of amateurs, either has no genius, or abuses it. To follow the prevailing taste of the many, needs, at the most, some dexterity in a very partial manner of treating tones. Artists of this description may be compared to

the mechanic, who must also make his goods so that his customers can make use of them. Bach never submitted to such conditions. He thought the artist may form the public, but that the public does not form the artist."

But it would please me best, if I could print here the whole of the concluding chapter of this little book. It shows a fulness and depth of feeling, objects are seen from a high platform of culture, which make it invaluable to those of us who are groping in a denser atmosphere after the beautiful. It is a slight scroll, which implies ages of the noblest effort, and so clear a perception of laws, that its expression, if excessive in the particular, is never extravagant on the whole; a true and worthy outpouring of homage, so true that its most technical details suggest the canons by which all the various exhibitions of man's genius are to be viewed, and silences, with silver clarion tone, the barking of partial and exclusive connoisseurship. The person who should republish such a book in this country would be truly a benefactor. Both this and the Life of Handel I have seen only in the London edition. The latter is probably out of print; but the substance of it, or rather the only pregnant traits from it have been given here. This life of Bach should be read, as its great subject should be viewed, as a whole.

The entertaining memoir of Beethoven by Ries and Wegeler has been, in some measure, made known to us through the English periodicals. I have never seen the book myself. That to which I shall refer is the life of Beethoven by Schindler, to whom Beethoven confided the task of writing it, in case of the failure of another friend, whom he somewhat preferred.

Schindler, if inadequate to take an observation of his subject from any very high point of view, has the merit of simplicity, fidelity, strict accuracy according to his power of discerning, and a devout reverence both for the art, and this greatest exemplar of the art. He is one of those devout Germans who can