Johann Sebastian Bach in early youth.
From an old engraving
Johann Sebastian Bach
BY
HERBERT F. PEYSER
NEW YORK
Grosset & Dunlap
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1945, by The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New Yorkunder the title: Johann Sebastian Bach and Some of his Major Works
Copyright, 1950, by The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York
Printed in the United States of America
Foreword
Compared with the unimaginable richness of his innerlife as the overpowering volume and splendor of his worksreveal it, Bach’s day-to-day existence seems almost pedestrian.It had none of the drama and spectacular conflictsthat marked the careers of men like Mozart, Beethoven,and Wagner. His travels, far less extensive than those ofhis great contemporary, Handel, were confined to areas of afew hundred miles at most in central and northern Germanyand were undertaken chiefly for sober professionalpurposes. The present volume, which advances no claimwhatever to any new or original slant, aims to do no morethan furnish for those who read and run a meager backgroundof a few isolated highspots in Bach’s outward life[5]and a momentary sideglance at a tiny handful of his supremecreations. Its object will have been more thanaccomplished if in any manner it stimulates a radio listenerto deepen his acquaintance with Bach’s immeasurable art.
H. F. P.
Johann Sebastian Bach
In families of unusual longevity and fruitfulness, observedGoethe, Nature has a way of bringing forth in herown good time one figure who unites all the greatest andmost distinctive qualities of his various forebears. The poetof Faust alluded to this mystic process of genealogy withreference to Voltaire. Actually, he might with quite asmuch reason have been speaking of Bach. For Bach combinedand brought into sharpest focus the musical talentsand predilections of almost three antecedent generations,as well as their physical and moral sturdiness, their spirituality,their robust clannishness. Yet the miracle ofJohann Sebastian Bach transcends even this amazingfusion of ancestral traits. It is hardly excessive to look[7]upon him as the consummation and fulfillment of all themusical trends that went before him and, in a manner ofspeaking, the origin of all those that came after.
There is probably nothing in the history of music tocompare with Bach’s ancestry from the standpoint of fertility,complexity, a