As we find in Bach the possibilities of all the great forms of the succeeding centuries, so we find in him also all the germs of future expression, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Nothing is more perverse than to regard this music as academic and expressionless. Expression is never absent from counterpoint except when it sacrifices impressionism to the mere display of technical mastery. We shall even to-day seek in vain for piano compositions more full of expression than some of the preludes contained in the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the remarkably decadent C sharp minor, in the B minor, so full of gentle mournfulness, in the E flat minor with its grandiose solemnity, in the B flat minor with its organ-like seriousness, or in the F major with its Meister-singer melody[88] (in Part II. Wohlt. Kl.), there is an unsurpassed depth of expression. Nowhere is there a greater variety of characters than would be presented by a comparison of the fugal themes in this work. Merely to turn over a few of its pages is to see before us an abundance of content which no other music-book would easily conceal in so narrow a space. It is in the service of expression that the motives for the architecture of the fugues are unfolded; in the service of expression the rhythms are developed, whose skilful planning is only clearly seen in a piece like the G major Prelude (Wohlt. Kl. i.); in the service of expression are formed the harmonies, from their simple successions, as in the C major Prelude (W. Kl. i.) or of the C sharp major Prelude (W. Kl. ii.) to the complicated retardations and tied notes of the B flat minor Prelude (Wohl. Kl. i.), or in the B minor fugue (W. Kl. i.) on a theme so wonderfully sad that no bolder chords can be found in the days of the most furious chords of the seventh. In Bach, says Marpurg, the different talents of a hundred other musicians were united.