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.”
