“In musical parties, where quartettes or other fuller pieces of instrumental music were performed, he took pleasure in playing the tenor. With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the middle of the harmony, whence he could both hear and enjoy it, on both sides. When an opportunity offered, in such parties, he sometimes accompanied a trio or other pieces on the harpsichord. If he was in a cheerful mood, and knew that the composer of the piece, if present, would not take it amiss, he used to make extempore out of the figured bass a new trio, or of three single parts a quartette. These, however, are the only cases in which he proved to others how strong he was.
“He was fond of hearing the music of other composers. If he heard in a church a fugue for a full orchestra, and one of his two eldest sons stood near him, he always, as soon as he had heard the introduction to the theme, said beforehand what the composer ought to introduce, and what possibly might be introduced. If the composer had performed his work well, what he had said happened; then he rejoiced, and jogged his son to make him observe it.”
He did not publish a work till he was forty years of age. He never laid aside the critical file through all his life, so that an edition of his works, accompanied by his own corrections, would be the finest study for the musician.
This severe ideal standard, and unwearied application in realizing it, made his whole life a progress, and the epithet old, which too often brings to our minds associations of indolence or decay, was for him the title of honour. It is noble and imposing when Frederic the Second says to his courtiers, “with a kind of agitation, ‘Gentlemen, Old Bach has come.’”
“He laboured for himself, like every true genius; he fulfilled his own wish, satisfied his own taste, chose his subjects according to his own opinion, and lastly, derived the most pleasure from his own approbation. The applause of connoisseurs could not then fail him, and, in fact, never did fail him. How else could a real work of art be produced? The artist, who endeavours to make his works so as to suit some particular class of amateurs, either has no genius, or abuses it. To follow the prevailing taste of the many, needs, at the most, some dexterity in a very partial manner of treating tones. Artists of this description may be compared to
