[Footnote 198: _Toccata 6a_ (adagio), and _Toccata 3a_ of the _Apparatus musico-organisticus_.] Appendix To facilitate the perusal of our work, we will close with a short sketch of J.S. Bach's life. Bach was born March 21, 1685, at Eisenach. His father, Ambrosius Bach, was a musician of the town; his uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, an organist.[199] [Footnote 199: Veit Bach was born in Gotha during the second half of the sixteenth century; he is considered the progenitor of the Bach family. He was the first representative of the race of musicians who furnished "cantors" and organists to the greater number of the central German cities. At Erfurt, for instance, the direction of the "council music" was in their hands from 1625 until 1735, and even after their disappearance the town musicians were still referred to as "the Bachs."] When Bach was nine years of age his mother died; the next year followed the decease of his father, and the boy was taken in by his elder brother, organist at Ohrdruf. Here he attended the Lyceum, where the teaching of music held an important place; the chorus, formed of the pupils, was renowned. Young Sebastian, gifted with a good soprano voice, was a member of this chorus; and in addition studied the clavecin under the direction of his brother, a pupil of Pachelbel. With such zeal did he devote himself to these studies, that he copied by moonlight a volume of pieces which he had been forbidden to play, his brother wishing to reserve for himself the right to conquer their difficulties. He did not remain long under the charge of his brother, whose family was gradually increasing. In 1700, undoubtedly upon the recommendation of Elias Herda, cantor of the school in Ohrdruf, Bach was admitted to St. Michael's School in Lüneburg; but he was now no longer a pupil, for in return for the general instruction which he received he was obliged to act as a sort of assistant chorusmaster for his comrades; at least as a leader. When his voice changed, which soon came about, he was charged with the clavecin accompaniment at chorus rehearsals, or with playing a violin part in the orchestra. He had, in fact, studied that instrument since his earliest childhood, his father having been a good violinist. He profited in his new surroundings by the advice of Georg Böhm, organist of St. John's Church in Lüneburg, and a musician of merit, whose influence upon Bach is apparent in many of the latter's earlier compositions, especially in the chorales. The location of Lüneburg permitted him also, from this time on, to make trips on foot to Hamburg, where he heard Adam Reinken and Vincent Lübeck, or to Celle, where the orchestra of the ducal court performed French music; then the fashion, complains Mattheson, not because of a value whose existence this German critic denied, but simply--the final misfortunes of the reign of Louis XIV. had not yet dimmed this glory--because it was French.