Story-Lives of Great Musicians

'Christoph, I wish you would let me have that book of manuscript music which you have in your cupboard--the one which contains pieces by Pachelbel, and Frohberger, and Buxtehude, and ever so many others--you know which I mean. I will take such care of it if you will only lend it to me for a little while.'

Christoph was about to leave the room, but he turned sharply to his little brother as the latter put his request.

'No, Sebastian, I will certainly not lend you the book, and I wonder that you have the impertinence to ask me such a thing! The idea of your thinking that you could study such masters as Buxtehude and Frohberger--a child like you! Get on with what I have set you to learn, and do not let me hear any more of such fancies!'

With that Christoph shut the door behind him, and Sebastian was left to ponder sadly upon his elder brother's harshness in refusing to accede to his simple request. The disappointment was very keen, for little Sebastian had been longing to get possession of that precious volume. For several days past he had spent hours in his brother's absence gazing at its covers through the lattice doors of the cupboard, and feasting his eyes upon the names of the musicians which were written on the back in bold letters in Christoph's hand.

[Illustration: 'Gazing at its covers through the lattice doors of the cupboard.']

What harm could there be in his trying to play the works of those masters? It seemed so unreasonable to the ten-year-old child, for he was passionately fond of music, and exceedingly quick at learning; yet Christoph persistently kept him to simple pieces such as he could master without the slightest difficulty, and which, therefore, afforded him no gratification whatever. He longed to be studying more advanced works, and there were times when this longing seemed insupportable--when the soul of this earnest child-musician rose in revolt against the tyrannical treatment of his elder brother. Christoph's lack of appreciation of Sebastian's capacity and gift for music was, moreover, so marked as to crush the feelings of love and respect which otherwise would have found a place in Sebastian's heart for the brother whom the sad circumstances of his childhood had made his guardian.

[Illustration: BACH. From photo RISCHGITZ.]

Johann Sebastian Bach, as the young musician was named, was an orphan. Ten years before the period at which our story opens--on March 21, 1685--he had first seen the light in the long, low-roofed cottage, which is still standing in the little German town of Eisenach, nestling at the foot of the wooded heights which form part of the romantically beautiful district of the Thuringer Wald. It is a country abounding in legendary lore, which, taking its birth from the recesses of the interminable forest, and perpetuated in ballad, has for ages found a home in the sequestered valleys lying locked between the hills. On one of the latter, overlooking the town, stands the Wartburg, in which Luther made his home, and where he translated the Bible into the German tongue.

Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, organist of Eisenach, was the descendant of a long race of musicians of the name who had followed music not merely as a means of livelihood, but with the earnest desire of furthering its artistic aims. For close upon two hundred years before Sebastian was born the family of Bach had thus laboured to develop and improve their art in the only direction in which it was practised in the Germany of those days--namely, as a fitting accompaniment to the simple, but deeply devotional, services of the Lutheran Church. So greatly had the influence of this ancient and closely-united family made itself felt in regard to church music that at Erfurt, where its members had practised the art for generations, all musicians were known as 'the Bachs,' although no Bach had actually resided in the town for many years.