Both of his parents died when Sebastian was ten years old and the boy was brought up and educated by his elder brother Johann Christian, a pupil of Pachelbel and organist and school-master at Ohrdruf. His organ training was of the most meagre description, but he was an indefatigable worker and thinker. His first organ position was at Arnstadt in 1704, in 1707 he removed to Mühlhausen, from 1708 to 1717 he was court-organist at Weimar, from 1717 to 1723 court chapel-master at Cöthen, and from 1723 till his death cantor of the Thomas School at Leipzig. His organ works number about 150, of which only a small number were published during his lifetime. Of the total number about ninety are chorale-preludes (great and small). The remaining works comprise nineteen large preludes and fugues, eight little preludes and fugues, five toccatas and fugues, two fantastias and fugues, seven independent fugues, four fantasias, a passacaglia, six sonatas, four concertos, and several shorter pieces. In his early productions Bach leaned strongly toward his predecessors in art--Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Couperin--a period of early dependence that is to be observed in the lives of all the great masters. He learned alike from German, Italian, and French masters, assimilated their best influences, and acquired all their resources, thus enlarging his own field of vision before disclosing his own individuality. Incredibly versatile as he is and unapproachable in many fields, the forms that he endowed with unusual sublimity and grandeur are the chorale-prelude, the toccata, and the fugue. Of these the fugue reveals the most characteristic elements of his greatness. The manner in which he treated the form of the fugue is unique, without precedent or parallel in the history of musical art. This form, as Bach found it, was mainly characterized by stiffness, monotony, and lack of expression. Under his hands, the greatest contrapuntist of the world, it acquired elasticity and flexibility; he made the seemingly dry and hard form so serve his imagination that he was able to produce real characteristic pieces, even musical poems, which reflect his innermost feeling in all its different nuances. The Toccata in F shows Bach’s genius in its most resplendent light. This piece, with its imposing and truly modern pedal solos, its intricate contrapuntal structure, its titanic energy, and its startling modulations, excited the boundless admiration of Mendelssohn: ‘It sounded as if the walls of the church might tumble down; what a giant that Cantor was!’[103] Three of the other toccatas are powerful compositions--the one in C major in the form of an Italian concerto, and the two in D minor, one of which is sometimes called the ‘Dorian’ because there is no B-flat in the signature and the other, majestic and brilliant.