He developed the fugue to its highest point. A fugue is an enlarged canon in which the fragments of theme or melody are taken up and answered by two, or more, voices. One voice declares the subject and the answer is repeated usually in the dominant key a fifth above, while the first voice gives the counter-subject. There are various kinds of fugues, depending on their construction. After the voices have all entered, separated sometimes by little passages called “episodes,” a section in which the subject is freely developed comes, and then the stretto, in which all the parts enter racing and overlapping, building up to a climax; then follows the cadence or ending. To write a noble or lofty fugue, neither dry nor pedantic, takes art to the _nth_ power! Bach had the art that touched Heaven’s borders! In truth you can safely divide fugues into two classes—Bach’s and all others! None of Bach’s works were published until he was forty years old, and most of them not until long after his death, and many of his manuscripts were lost and never published at all. The list of his works is stupendous; the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach Society, 1850) published them in sixty volumes! Among them were the 48 Preludes and Fugues (The Well-tempered Clavichord Collection); 12 Suites; many Inventions in 2 and 3 parts; partitas; 12 concertos for 1, 2, 3 and 4 claviers with orchestra; many sonatas and concertos for violin, flute, viola da gamba, clavier, and orchestra; several overtures for orchestras; vocal works; 200 motets and cantatas; 5 _Passions_, of which the greatest are the St. Matthew and the St. John; 5 masses of which his _B Minor Mass_ is a world masterpiece; oratorios; magnificats; many organ works, and old German chorales harmonized for voices. When you can, try to hear Wanda Landowska play Bach compositions on the harpsichord. It is a glimpse into the beauty of the saintly Bach. Also try to hear the great Bach Festival, directed by Frederick Wolle held yearly in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Moravian Church. In a list of great men, Bach would be classed with Euripides, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Milton, da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Goethe. Bach did not write for people, he wrote for his own soul. He never seemed able to write theatric music, for his was the drama of the spirit. Always, his music was the result of his musings, the confessions of his ideals. So he attained a loftiness, grandeur and sublimity far removed from even some of the most dramatic writers. BACH’S SONS