We have spoken of the widely varying, commanding, yet, bright and equable life of Haydn; of the victorious procession, and regal Alexandrine aspect of Handel; of the tender, beloved, overflowing, all too intense life of Mozart. They are all great and beautiful; look at them from what side you will, the foot stands firm, the mantle falls in wide and noble folds, and the eye flashes divine truths. But now we come to a figure still more Roman, John Sebastian Bach, all whose names we give to distinguish him from a whole family of geniuses, a race through which musical inspiration had been transmitted, without a break, for six generations; nor did it utterly fail, after coming to its full flower in John Sebastian; his sons, though not equal to their father, were not unworthy their hereditary honours.
The life of Bach which I have before me, (translated from the German of J. N. Forkel, author also of the “Complete History of Music,”) is by far the best of any of these records. It is exceedingly brief and simple, very bare of facts, but the wise, quiet enthusiasm of its tone, and the delicate discrimination of the remarks on the genius of Bach, bring us quite home to him and his artist-life. Bach certainly shines too lonely in the sky of his critic, who has lived in and by him, till he cannot see other souls in their due places, but would interrupt all hymns to other deities with “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” But his worship is true to the object, if false to the All, and the pure reverence of his dependence has made him fit to reproduce the genius which has fed his inmost life. All greatness should enfranchise its admirers, first from all other dominions, and then from its own. We cannot but think that Forkel has seen, since writing this book, that he deified Bach too exclusively, but he can never feel the shame of blind or weak obsequiousness. His, if idolatry, was yet in the spirit of true religion.
The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of the spirit in which the whole book is written.
