rman masters and
mediators. The boy extracted them from their resting-place, and we see
the young tone-prophet striving to master the art-forms of Reinken,
Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Kerl, Froberger, and Pachelbel, endeavoring to
wrest from them their style and inmost meaning by the light of the
moon's pale rays, which led, alas! in after-years to blindness.

What revelations came to the soul of the young musician we know not. But
his genius thus directed knew no pause until it had won forever the
freedom of the tonal art, until the last fetter of conventionality had
been removed, until in all dignity and beauty music came forth,
henceforth to comfort and solace the human heart. But of this anon. We
trace the young boy to school; we see him a chorister in the choir of
St. Michael's, Lueneburg. Here he entered the gymnasium, studying Greek
and Latin, organ-and violin-playing. Here, too, he exhausted the
treasures of the musical library. But at Hamburg the great Reinken was
giving a series of organ recitals. Thither young Bach repaired. At Celle
he became acquainted with several suites and other compositions of
celebrated French masters. In 1703 he became violinist in the
Saxe-Weimar orchestra, and in the same year, aged eighteen, he was
appointed organist at the new church at Arnstadt, where other members of
his family had held similar positions. Thus already we have ample
evidence both of intense activity and catholicity of taste, and now, a
mere youth, he enters upon his life-work: the perfecting of church
music, especially the chorale form, and the emancipation of the art from
any influence whatsoever other than derives from contact with nature and
emotion. If we ask what equipment he had for his task, we answer:
enthusiasm, so deep, so tempered in all its qualities, that, though in a
few years he became the ablest performer of his time upon the
harpsichord and organ, yet never once is the term "virtuoso" associated
in our thought with the purity of aspiration which characterized him.
His enthusiasm was religious, deep-seated, his vision far and wide, and
no temporary triumph, no sunlit cloud of fame, could satisfy the
imperative needs of his inmost nature. And this nature was calm, with
the calmness of strength and with that tender purity and homely virtue
which characterized the surroundings of his boyhood.

This enthusiasm, this religious instinct, for what was noblest and best,
led him early, as we have seen, to see