For the great advancement achieved by French workmanship in our day, we are indebted to Cavaillé-Coll and his masterpieces, which lend themselves to the perfect expression of any idea, be it of the past or of the present.
Since Cavaillé-Coll, the study of Bach has begun. Will you believe that sixty years ago one would have searched Paris in vain to find two organists who knew the fugue in B minor? I know of none but conscientious Boëly, of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois; the published compositions bear witness to the ideal of those times, an ideal without a name.
Finally becoming disgusted with this state of affairs, a few young men, more curious than their elders, began to inquire into the contents of the dusty volumes of the great Sebastian; they seemed to them at first somewhat dry, although interesting, at least in point of execution. One might learn something in that direction! And soon they were greatly surprised to find their souls touched, while working with their fingers. And when, acquiring a taste for further search, they went through the volumes of Chorales, and finally arrived at the Cantatas...!
I shall never forget the hours devoted by the Concordia, whose conductor I was, to the study and performance, at the Conservatoire, of that splendid series of lyric works, which we crowned with the "Passion according to Saint Matthew...."
In justice to our elders it must be said that in Germany as well Bach had been long neglected. All honor to Mendelssohn, who conducted this prodigious work at the Singakademie in Berlin, March 29, 1829; it had been sleeping in the depths of a library for just one hundred years, the first performance of the work having been on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipzig.
In 1840 Mendelssohn gave an organ concert in St. Thomas's Church upon the instrument which so long before had been played by the great Bach himself; the object of the concert was the augmentation of the subscription for a monument to his memory.
The following was the programme:
- Fugue in E flat.
- Improvisation upon themes from Bach.
- Prelude and Fugue in A minor.
- Passacaglia.
- Pastorale. Toccata.
- Fantasia upon some of the chorales.
April 4th of the following year, in the same church, Mendelssohn conducted the St. Matthew Passion, from the same spot where Bach himself had directed it, 112 years before.
Finally, on March 23, 1843, a great symphony concert was given: