wonderful promise of his son Friedermann, who,
in the words of the brilliantly successful K. Philipp Emanuel Bach, was
more nearly capable of replacing his father than all the rest of the family
together. The prospect of complete loss of the tradition of his own
polyphonic art he faced with equanimity, saying of the new style, which in
the hands of his own son, Philipp Emanuel, was soon to eclipse it for the
next hundred years, "The art has advanced to great heights: the old style
of music no longer pleases our modern ears." But it would have broken his
heart if he had forseen that Friedermann Bach was to attain a disreputable
old age after a dissolute and unproductive life.

The brilliant successes of Philipp Emanuel led to his appointment as
court-composer to the king of Prussia and hence, in 1747, to Sebastian's
being summoned to visit Frederick the Great at Potsdam, an incident which
Bach always regarded as the culmination of his career, much as Dr Johnson
regarded his interview with George III. Bach had to play on the numerous
newly invented pianofortes of Silbermann which the king had bought, and
also to try the organs of the churches of Potsdam. Frederick, whose musical
reputation rested on a genuine if narrow basis, gave him a splendid theme
on which to extemporize; and on that theme Bach afterwards wrote _Das
musikalische Opfer_. Two years after this event his sight began to fail,
and before long he shared the fate of Handel in becoming perfectly
blind.[2]

Bach died of apoplexy on the 28th of July 1750. His loss was deplored as
that of one of the greatest organists and clavier players of his time. Of
his compositions comparatively little was known. At his death his MS. works
were divided amongst his sons, and many of them have been lost; only a
small fraction of his greater works was recovered when, after the lapse of
nearly a century, the verdict of his neglectful posterity was reversed by
the modern upholders of polyphonic art. Even now some important works are
still apparently irrecoverable.

[Sidenote: Work and influence.]

The rediscovery of Bach is closely connected with the name of Mendelssohn,
who was amongst the first to proclaim by word and deed the powers of a
genius too gigantic to be grasped by three generations. By the enthusiastic
endeavours of Mendelssohn, Schumann and others, and in England still
earlier by the performances and publications of Wesley and Crotch, the
circle of Bach's worshi