companied by his favourite _oboe d'amore_. With the next
sentence "ecce enim beatam me dicent" the tone brightens to a quiet joy,
but Bach takes advantage of the syntax of the Latin in a way that defies
translation, and the sentence is finished by the chorus. "Omnes
generationes" seem indeed to pass before us in the crowded fugue which
rises in perpetual stretto, the incessant entries of its subject now
mounting the whole scale, each part a step higher than the last, and now
collecting in unison with a climax of closeness and volume overwhelming in
its impression of time and multitude.

SUMMARY OF BACH'S WORKS

No attempt is here made at chronological sequence. The changes in Bach's
style, though clear and important, are almost impossible to describe in
untechnical language; nor are they of such general interest as to make it
worth while to expand this summary by an attempt to apportion its contents
among the Arnstadt-Muehlhausen period, the Weimar period, the Coethen
period (chiefly remarkable for instrumental music and comparatively
uninteresting in its easy-going choral music), and the last period
(1733-1750) in which, while the choral works became at once more numerous
and more terse (_e.g._ _Jesu, der du meine Seele_) the instrumental music,
though never diffuse, shows an increasing preference for designs on a large
scale. (Compare, for example, the second book of the _Wohltemperirtes
Klavier_, 1744, with the first, 1722.)

I.--CHURCH MUSIC

A. _With Orchestra_

190 church cantatas: besides several which are only known from fragmentary
sets of parts. Of the 190, 40 are for solo voices, about 60 (including some
solo cantatas) are more or less founded on chorales, and the rest, though
almost invariably containing a chorale (for congregational singing), are
practically short oratorios and frequently so entitled by Bach himself.

3 wedding cantatas: the Easter oratorio (exactly like the above-mentioned
oratorio-cantatas; and the Christmas oratorio (six similar cantatas forming
a connected design for performance on six separate days).

The Passions according to St Matthew and St John.

Funeral ode for the Duchess Eberhardine (now known to be arranged from
portions of the lost Passion according to St Mark).

4 short masses (_i.e._ Kyrie and Gloria only) mainly compiled from church
cantatas.

Mass in B minor. Magnificat in D. A few other ecclesiastical Latin
choruses.

B. _Without Orchestra_

5 motets _a ca