The next year he became Concertmaster (first violinist), to the Duke of Weimar and remained there until 1718. This was a very fruitful composing period, for he had no money worries. He studied the Italian masters, especially Vivaldi, and wrote some excellent cantatas. However, he went soon to the Prince of Anhalt-Cothen, as Court Choir Master. He made concert trips from here to Dresden and Leipsic, and it was in Dresden that he challenged the proud Marchand, the French organist, to a public improvisation contest on a theme, new to both of them. But the contest never took place, because, unknown to Bach, Marchand heard him play and when the time for the contest came, Marchand had left town hurriedly in an early post-chaise. And strange as it may seem, Emperor Frederick I gave Marchand one hundred ducats and Bach got nothing! Bach’s new patron was a fine man and a Protestant and gave Bach every chance. At Weimar, he had become well known for his religious works and beautiful playing. But, as he had no organ, he wrote music for harpsichord, violin, chamber music and the orchestra, which was far from “grown up.” Here, too, he wrote the Brandenburg Concertos and the first part of his epoch-making work _The Well-tempered Clavichord_ (48 Preludes and Fugues, 1722) which he finished in 1744. It is still the greatest work of its kind. In it he reaches the highest point of contrapuntal writing. In 1720, while Bach was traveling with the Prince, his wife died. After a year and a half he married a charming singer, Anna Magdalena Wulkens, one of his pupils. They had twelve children and lived very happily. The lovely little tunes that he wrote for Anna Magdalena and his children have come down to us and many of us have played them in the first years of our music study. Isn’t it wonderful to think that the great Bach, who wrote some of the masterpieces of the world, could also write simple little Minuets and Preludes that any child can play? But with all Bach’s comfort he missed an organ! Deep in his soul, he craved the making of religious music—it was part of his thinking. His religious ideas tied up with his music, were his life. So we see this saint leaving happiness at Cothen for an ill-paid post in Leipsic, as Cantor (1723) at the school of St. Thomas, where, succeeding Johann Kuhnau, he stayed the rest of his life and wrote his greatest works. Bach wrote to a friend that he thought a long while before leaving his “gracious, music loving and discriminating Prince ... but it happened that my master married a ... princess who ... weaned my master from the loving interest he had ... toward our glorious art. And so God arranged that the post of Cantor at St. Thomas’ should fall vacant.... I took three months to consider the future and was induced to accept, as my sons were studious and I was desirous ... of gratifying their bent by entering them in the school ... and thus, in the name of the Most High, I ventured and came to Leipsic.”