Bach was twice married and became the father of 20 children; five sons and five daugh ters died before him, while six sons and four daughters survived him. His first wife was also a Bach—a cousin; she died in 1720, while he was on a concert tour. Eighteen months after her death he married a girl of 21 who was also musical; yet none of the 13 children by this second marriage attained as high a rank as some of the seven by the first wife. The sec ond wife helped him copy his MSS. (which he was constantly revising) and in course of timt her handwnting came to resemble his so closely that the two were hard to distinguish. In no way did Bach differ more widely from his great contemporary, Handel, than in his family life; Handel died a bachelor. There were times when Bach found it difficult to bear the material btu-den of his large family, but he was not so poor in his lifetime as is usually supposed. His income from various sources was, it is true, only about $500 at the best; but the purchasing power of that stun was equal to $3,000 in our day. It was after his death that the pinch of poverty was felt; his widow died in an almshouse; he himself was buried in a pauper's grave. For more than a century no one knew the exact place of this grave; the circumstances of its discovery read like a de tective story. Some years ago it became neces sary to rebuild the old Johannis Church in Leipzig, and, in connection with this, to remove the bones from that part of the adjoining cem etery in which Bach was believed to have been buned, Tbe director of the archives, Wust mann, took this opportunity to search for Bach's grave. He had found in the books of the Johannis Hospital an item stating that $4 bad been paid for Johann Sebastian Bach's oak coffin, which gave him his principal clue, for oalc coffins were seltlom used in those days. Near the place where Back was believed to have been buried be found two oak coffins, one containing the remains of a young woman, the other the bones of a man, whose skull was so unique as to arouse the suspicion at once that it was Bach's. It was placed in the hands of the famous anatomist, Professor His, who, after a long series of comparative investiga tions, came to the conclusion that there could be no doubt whatever that the slcull was Bach's. He embodied Ms argument in brochure, aForschtiagen iiber Bach's Grab sane und Gebeine.°, The fact that Bach's con temporaries thus took no note of his burial place is convincing evidence that they never dreamed he was destmed to rank as the greatest of all tnusical geniuses. Further evidence of this lies in the cirtanistance that he really brought about his death by his efforts to save some of his unappreciated MSS. from destruction by en graving them on copper plates. This led to serious trouble with his eyes; two operations by au English surgeon were followed by total blindness, which made it impossible for him to complete his great work, aThe Art of Fugue.° He dictated for its final number a choral, °When we were overwhelmed by Woe,° and died not long afterward.
The thematic catalogue of his works con tains 1,110 instrumental and 1,936 vocal num bers. All of them combined probably never brought him in as much as the $1,175 paid at a Berlin auction sale a few years ago for three of his MSS. Until 1829, when Mendelssohn, after overcoming a good deal of opposition, suc ceeded in producing the wonderful 'Saint Mat thew's Passion) in Berlin, for the first time since its composer's death, the great Leipzig Cantor was looked on, in Mendelssohn's words, as la mere old-fashioned big-wig stuffed with learning.° That work opened the eyes of the musicians to their colossal stupidity, and from that year to the present time Bach's fame has been growing in a steady crescendo. In 1851 a Bach Society was formed at Leipzig for the printing of a monumental edition of Bach's worlcs by Breitloapf and Hartel. For nearly half a century (up to 1896) a huge folio vol ume was issued every year, and after its com pletion the Bach Society began to mice efforts for multiplying performances of these works, the majority of which constitute even now an unsurveyed Klondike. Bach himself does not appear .to have been chagrined by the neglect of his works during his lifetime. aWe find in him,') writes Abdy Williams, alittle of that de sire for applause, for recognition, which is usu ally one of the strongest motives in an artist.
Ile was content to labor as few men have labored, in-a remote corner of Germany, simply for art and art alone.° To cite Bach's own Words: .aThe sole object of all music should be the glory of God and pleasant recreation.° At the same tirne, it is obvious that he would have been gratified if he had won, as composer, some of the honors which fell to him abun dantly as player. Of the esteem in which he was held as organist and clavichordist, two anec dotes give the best illustration. In 1717, while on one of his concert tourst he happened to be in Dresden at the same time as the famous French organist and harpsichord player Mar chand. The Dresdeners thought this was a good chance for an international contest, and Bach was induced to offer the Frenchman a challenge. It was accepted and all the details had been arranged; but when the hour arrived there was no Marchand. He had talcen °French leave° that morning on the fast coach! Many years later, in 1747, Bach accepted a repeatedly given invitation to visit Frederick the Great at Potsdam. The King was delighted to see him. Without allowing him to take off his traveling clothes, he made him improvise on all the pianos and organs in his. palace, and again and again he exclaimed: aThere is only one Bach !') It has been said of Bach that music owes almost as much to him as a religion does to its founder. This is true especially of two laranches —the organ and choral music. Both as a writer for the organ and a player he has had nd equal.
The best account of this phase of his'art is con tained in Pirro's 'Bach, the Organist, and his Works for the Organ' • the author's aim being to make it easier to play Bach gin the Bach spirit." He refers to the great composer as "the man who suddenly surpassed all that had been done before him while at the same time anticipating all that was to be written in the future." The organ works are contained in Vols. XV. XVII, XXXVIII and XL of the Breitkopf and Hanel edition. Some of them are best known to music lovers through their superb arrangements for pianoforte by Liszt, Busoni and others. Quite as striking, is Bach's pre-eminence in choral music. The vocal works make up more than 30 volumes; among them there are four of chamber music with voice, nine of passions, oratorios and masses; and no fewer than 17 of church cantatas. It is known that he wrote five complete sets of these can tatas for all the Sundays and holidays in the year; probably there were about 350 in all, but of those only about 200 have been preserved. The greatest choral works in existence are Bach's 'Saint Matthew Passion' and his Mass in B minor. Schumann preferred the 'Saint John Passion' even to the Saint Matthew. Three other passions written by Bach are lost. Concerning this class of works Wagner ex claimed: °What opulence, what fullness of art, what power, clearness, and withal simple purity, speak to us from these unrivalled master works!" They are made up of arias, recita tives, chorals and other choruses, beside the instrumental accompaniment. The arias are sometimes embroidered after the fashion of the time, but usually they are simple, chaste and delightfully melodious. Indeed, Bach was so full of melody that it overflows into his recitatives, which are, at the same time, often highly dramatic and emotional, foreshadowing Wag ner's. If Bach had written operas they would have been more dramatic than Handel's; but the opera was (apart from the Lied, or lyric art song, which had not yet been created), the one form of music which Bach avoided. As for the choruses in his works, they are of in comparable grandeur, and at the same time of great difficulty. All the parts are melodious; indeed there is in these works little practical difference between the chorus singers and the soloists. Many of the choruses are stately chorals — the hymns introduced into the Church by Luther and perfected by Bach. These were sung by the trained choir, the harmonies being too elaborate for the congregation. In his own churches Bach found the means of execution lamentably inadequate. The singers and stu dents could barely master the technique; of the inner spirit they had no conception.