the Thomasschule, whose council did not regret his death, and, like the Leipzig newspapers, did not even mention it in its annual opening address. It refused the small customary pension to his widow, who died in 1760 in a condition of indigence. Fortunately Bach had trained a number of scholarly pupils, to say nothing of his sons, who cherished a pious recollection of his teaching. But how was he known twenty years after his death? As a great organist and a masterly teacher. Burney remembers him when he passes through Leipzig, but only to cite the opinion of Quantz, who said of Bach "that this able artist had brought the art of playing the organ to the highest degree of perfection." He adds:
"In addition to the excellent and very numerous compositions which he wrote for the church, this author has published a book of preludes and fugues for the organ, on two, three or four different motives, in modo recto et contrario, and in each of the twenty-four modes. All the organists existing to-day in Germany were trained in his school, just as most of the harpsichord -players and pianists have been trained in that of his son, the admirable Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, who has long been so well-known."
Observe the position of the epithet "admirable." In 1770 the "admirable Bach" is Philipp Emmanuel Bach. He is the great man of the family. And Burney goes into raptures over the fashion in which "this sublime musician" had contrived to train himself.[1]
- ↑ Despite the absurdity of comparing him with, and preferring him to his father, Philipp Emmanuel Bach was none the less a musician of genius, who lacked only a character, or at all events a will, equal to the height of musical inspiration. But a sort of discouragement and lethargy paralysed his admirable powers, and it is a melancholy sight to see in him, at certain moments, as it were the soul of a Beethoven, struggling in the bonds of a straitened life, giving off flashes of genius and then relapsing into apathy.
