Note, dear reader, the nobility, spirituality and sweetness here, thinking of his children and not of his career! He struggled against the unsympathetic town council, the school, and lack of money. He wrote to his friend Erdman, “My present income averages $700. When funerals are numerous I make more, but if the ‘air is healthy’ then my income falls. During the past year I have earned $100 less, owing to the small number of deaths.” In 1732 he wrote one of his few attempts at comedy.—the _Coffee Cantata_ set to music on a text by Picander. Leipsic had become a slave to the new luxury, coffee, and in this Picander found material for a satire. Besides his regular work, he had to teach dull, undisciplined pupils, attend to services in four churches, and be satisfied with the few singers and players he found for the performances he directed. Yet, fed with the spirit of love that was within him, he was happy and his home was a center of joy. He never became too sad until he lost his sight three years before his death. Even then he dictated his compositions and conquered discouragement! Bach’s life was made happier when Philip Emanuel became Court musician and clavier player to Frederick the Great, and he talked so much of his father that Bach was invited to Potsdam. When Frederick the Great, who was playing the flute in his orchestra, heard that Bach was in Potsdam, he put down his flute and interrupted the concert saying, “Gentlemen, old Bach has arrived.” Bach appeared in his traveling clothes and was invited to improvise a fugue in six parts, which he did to the great admiration of all. Yet many felt that his writings were lacking in charm! This was no doubt because people were getting accustomed to the Italian melodies which had become popular in Germany. Furthermore, when he wrote “The Art of Fugue” his son could sell but thirty copies and finally sold the plates for the mere cost of the metal! Students are grateful that copies of this work were saved, for it is still the greatest authority on fugue writing. In 1749, Bach underwent an operation on his eyes but lost his sight and in 1750 died of apoplexy. So little was he appreciated that his grave was destroyed in the renovation of the Johanneskirche grounds. His supposed remains were discovered in 1894 and re-interred one hundred and forty-four years after his death. But—what remains of Bach, no known or unknown grave can bury. A quarter of a century after Bach’s death, Mozart said, on hearing a Bach Cantata, “At last I have heard something new and have learned something.” Then later Mendelssohn re-discovered him, and Schubert, too, helped to bring him to the world’s notice. And not until 1850, a century after his death, was the Bach Society formed to honor Bach, the corner-stone of modern music.