Sebastian Bach was not only the descendant of a widely-known musical
family, but was himself the direct ancestor of about sixty of the
best-known organists and church composers of Germany. As a master of
organ-playing, tradition tells us that no one has been his equal, with
the possible exception of Handel. He was also an able performer on
various stringed instruments, and his preference for the clavichord[B]
led him to write a method for that instrument, which has been the
basis of all succeeding methods for the piano. Bach's teachings and
influence may be said to have educated a large number of excellent
composers and organ and piano players, among whom were Emanuel Bach,
Cramer, Hummel, and Clementi; and on his school of theory and practice
the best results in music have been built.
That Bach's glory as a composer should be largely posthumous is
probably the result of his exceeding simplicity and diffidence, for
he always shrank from popular applause; therefore we may believe his
compositions were not placed in the proper light during his life. It
was through Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, that the musical world
learned what a master-spirit had wrought in the person of John
Sebastian Bach. The first time Mozart heard one of Bach's hymns, he
said, "Thank God! I learn something absolutely new."
Bach's great compositions include his "Preludes and Fugues" for the
organ, works so difficult and elaborate as perhaps to be above the
average comprehension, but sources of delight and instruction to all
musicians; the "Matthäus Passion," for two choruses and two
orchestras, one of the masterpieces in music, which was not produced
till a century after it was written; the "Oratorio of the Nativity of
Jesus Christ;" and a very large number of masses, anthems, cantatas,
chorals, hymns, etc. These works, from their largeness and dignity of
form, as also from their depth of musical science, have been to all
succeeding composers an art-armoury, whence they have derived and
furbished their brightest weapons. In the study of Bach's works the
student finds the deepest and highest reaches in the science of music;
for his mind seems to have grasped all its resources, and to have
embodied them with austere purity and precision of form. As Spenser is
called the poet for poets, and Laplace the mathematician for
mathematicians, so Bach is the musician for musicians. While Handel
may be considered a purely independent and parallel growth, it is not
too much to assert that without Sebastian Bach and his matchless
studies for the piano, organ, and orchestra, we could not have had the
varied musical development in sonata and symphony from such masters as
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Three of Sebastian Bach's sons became
distinguished musicians, and to Emanuel we owe the artistic
development of the sonata, which in its turn became the foundation of
the symphony.