SEBASTIAN BACH AND HIS WORKS. 13 



volves in its execution, and who shews in that execution that he is 

 fully capable, not only of surmounting those difficulties, hut of sur- 

 mounting them with grace. The preludes, possessing as they do 

 the same excellencies, the same beauties, and the same highly poetic 

 feeling as the fugues, form, together with these, a treasure of art, 

 a mine of wealth, which we can never study too deeply, never value 

 too highly. 



The world has never yet seen the instance of a great and original 

 instrumental composer who has not also excelled in writing for 

 voices. The means which are employed, the resources which are 

 required for both, are essentially the same ; they vary only in the 

 mode of their adaptation to a proposed end. Can it be supposed, 

 then, that he who excelled all rivals in the one, should not also be 

 equally superior in the other .'' Such a supposition can only pro- 

 ceed from one possessed of ])artial and incorrect notions of the art. 

 He who asserts that Bach's instrumental works exhibit variety, 

 learning, and sublimity unsurpassed and unsurpassable, will be re- 

 quired to prove that the resources which, in instrumental music, 

 have been employed to produce the highest excellence, become, 

 when applied to vocal writing, in a measure unavailable to the same 

 end. To do this is impossible ; we are accordingly favored with 

 the assertion only, not with the proof. As such, let us receive it, 

 and proceed without delay to its refutation, as one detrimental, not 

 only to the fame of him against whom it is directed, but also to the 

 interests aad advance of the art to which it relates. 



Sebastian Bach's vocal works — all, so far as we are aware, devot- 

 ed to sacred subjects — may be divided into those written for the 

 Protestant, and those for the Roman Catholic, form of worship. 

 This arrangement in the examination of his works is purely one of 

 convenience, for the stamp of his exalted genius is to be found in 

 all alike : of his compositions adapted to German words we arc 

 acquainted with seven only. We now proceed to their examina- 

 tion. 



No. 1. A Litany, after the Text of Martin Luther. — This is a 

 master-work, evincing, in its fullest extent, all the learning and 

 sublimity of its author. It consists of one movement in 1) minor, 

 with orchestral accompaniments. The alto, tenor, and bass voices, 

 move easily and unconstrainedly in free canon, whilst the soprano 

 makes the subjects that have been proposed by the other voices be 



must wait tor general a])i)rcciation till the lime when music is cultivated as 

 au art, and not as a mere idle aniusunient. 



