Bach was a lovable man, but a stern and somewhat bellicose one as well. He was shrewd enough to respect social rank quite in the manner of his day, as the dedication of the Brandenburg concertos plainly shows; but the records of his various quarrels with the municipal authorities of Leipzig prove how quick he was to unrestrained wrath whenever his rights either as man or artist were infringed upon. A great deal of independence marked him. The same can hardly be said either of Scarlatti or of Couperin, the one of whom was lazy and good-natured, the other gently romantic and extremely polite. Scarlatti rather enjoyed his indifference to accepted rules of composition; and there was nothing either of self-abasement or of self-depreciation in Couperin; but both lacked the stalwart vigor of Bach. Scarlatti aimed, confessedly, to startle and to amuse by his harpsichord pieces. He cautioned his friends not to look for anything particularly serious in them. It is hard to dissociate an ideal of pure and only faintly colored beauty from Couperin. But in the music of Bach one seldom misses the ring of a strong and even an impetuous need of self-expression. In the mighty organ works, and in the vocal works, one may believe with him that he sang his soul out to the glory of his Maker; but in the smaller keyboard pieces sheer delight in expressing himself is unmistakable. It is this that makes Bach a romanticist, while Couperin, with all his fanciful titles, is classic. It is this that made Bach write in nearly the same style for all instruments, drawing upon his personal inspiration without consideration of the instrument for which he wrote; while Couperin, exquisitely sensitive to all external impressions, forced his fine art to conformity with the special and limited qualities of the instrument for which he wrote the great part of his music. And, finally, it is this which produced utterance of so many varied moods and emotions in the music of Bach; while in the music of Couperin we find all moods and emotions tempered to one distinctly normal cast of thought. Bach has been the subject of so much profound and special study that there is little to be added to the explanation of his character or of his works. In considering him as a composer for the harpsichord or clavichord, one has to bear two facts in mind: that he was a great player and a great teacher.