And, what is more, the few pieces of Couperin which are still heard seem almost to live on sufferance, as if the life they have were not of their own, but lent them by the listener disposed to imagine a courtier’s life long ago washed out in blood. ‘Sweet and delicate,’ one hears of the music of Couperin, as one hears of some bit of old lace or old brocade, that has lain long in a chest of lavender. Yet the music of Couperin is far more than a matter of fashion. It is by all tokens great art. The lack is in the race of musicians and of men who have lost the art of playing it and the simplicity of attentive listening. To a certain extent the music of Sebastian Bach suffers from the same lack. On the other hand, the spirit of his music is perennial and it holds a rank in the modern ear far above that held by any other harpsichord music. Apart from indefinable reasons of æsthetic worth there are other reasons why Bach’s music, at any rate a considerable part of it, is still with us. In the first place, the style of its texture is solid. Instead of being crushed, as Couperin’s music is, by the heavy, rich tone of the modern pianoforte, it seems to grow stronger by speaking through the stronger instrument. Bach’s style is nearly always an organ style, whether he is writing for clavichord, for chorus, for bands or strings. It is very possible that a certain mystical, intimate sentiment which is innate in most of his clavichord music cannot find expression through the heavy strings of the pianoforte. This may be far dearer than the added depth and richness which the pianoforte has, as it were, hauled up from the great reservoirs of music he has left us. But it is none the less true that the high-tensioned heavy strings on their gaunt frame of cast iron need not call in vain on the music of Bach to set the heart of them vibrating.