List of Illustrations
| Portrait of Bach, by Hausmann (Photogravure) | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| The House at Eisenach in which J. S. Bach was Born | To face [21] |
| St Michael’s Church, Ohrdruf, with the Lyceum, now the Burgerschule | „ [22] |
| The Keyboard of Bach’s Arnstadt Organ, now in the Rathhaus | „ [27] |
| The Thomasschule at Leipsic | „ [59] |
| St Thomas’ Church, Leipsic: the Thomasschule is on the right | „ [68] |
| St John’s Church, Leipsic | „ [89] |
| Facsimile of Music | „ [132] |
| The Performance of a Church Cantata, from Walther’s Lexicon, Leipsic, 1732 | „ [204] |
Chapter I
The Bachs of Thuringia—Veit Bach, the ancestor of John Sebastian—His sons and descendants—A breach of promise of marriage—J. Christoph Bach of Arnstadt—His cantata “Es erhob sich ein Streit”—John Michael Bach of Gehren—His character—His compositions—Joh. Christoph Bach of Ohrdruf, and his descendants—The sons of Joh. Sebastian Bach—The clan feeling—A sixteenth century quodlibet.
John Sebastian Bach came of a large family of Thuringian musicians, whose members have been traced back to the first decade of the sixteenth century. The name frequently occurs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries among the inhabitants of Arnstadt, Erfurt, Gräfenrode, Molsdorf, Rockhausen and other villages; and that it has not yet disappeared is shown by the fact that the Erfurt Directory for 1899 contains the addresses of no less than thirteen Bachs.
The Founder of the Family