The most remarkable feature of the career of Bach is his productivity in the line of choral works. As leader of the music in the St. Thomas church, he had under his control two organs, two choirs, the children of the school and an orchestra. For these resources he composed a succession of cantatas, every feast day in the ecclesiastical year being represented by from one to five separate works. The total number of these cantatas reaches more than 230. Some of them are short, ten or fifteen minutes long, but most of them are from thirty to forty minutes, and some of them reach an hour. Their treasures have been but imperfectly explored, although most of them are now in print. In the course of his ministrations at Leipsic he produced five great Passion oratorios for Good Friday in Holy Week. The greatest of these was the Passion of St. Matthew, so named from the source of its text. This work occupies about two hours in performance. It is in two parts, and the sermon was supposed to intervene. It consists of recitative, arias and choruses, some of which are extremely elaborate and highly dramatic. The other Passions are less fortunate. Nevertheless they contain many beautiful and highly dramatic moments. Bach's oratorios belong to the category of church works, as distinguished from those intended for concert purposes. This is seen especially in the treatment of the chorale, in which he expects the congregation to co-operate. In one direction Bach was subject to serious limitation. His knowledge of the voice, and his consideration for its convenience, were far below the standard of composers of the same time educated in Italy. In his works, while many passages are very impressive, and while the melody and harmony are always appropriate to the matter in hand, the intervals and especially the convenience of the different registers of the voice are very imperfectly considered, for which reason his works have not been performed to anything like the extent to which their musical interest would otherwise have carried them. This is especially true of the greatest of all, the Passion according to St. Matthew. It was first performed on Good Friday, 1729, in the St. Thomas church at Leipsic, and it does not appear to have been given again until 1829, when Mendelssohn brought it out. Since that time it has been given almost every year in Leipsic, and more or less frequently in all the musical centers of the world, but its elaboration is very great and its vocal treatment unsatisfactory to solo voices, for which reason it succeeds only under the inspiration of an artistic and enthusiastic leader. In fact, all the great works of Bach are more or less in the category of classics, which are well spoken of and seldom consulted. While, in Beethoven's time, the whole of the "Well Tempered Clavier" was not thought too much for an ambitious youngster, at the present time there are few pianists who play half a dozen of these pieces. The easier inventions for two