Practical Knowledge
It seems impossible that he could have himself performed his violin and violoncello sonatas; they tax the highest efforts of the best performers of the present day; but his knowledge of stringed instruments and their possibilities is shown by these compositions to have been as profound as his knowledge of the organ. No mere theoretical knowledge could have sufficed to enable him to write these things; he must have had a wider practical knowledge than any but the best virtuosi, and to this he united his enormous genius for composition.
It appears natural that the German violinists, with their feeling for full harmony, should have cultivated the art of double-stopping on stringed instruments, rather than that of pure melody and tone. It is said that Bruhns the organist, Buxtehude’s pupil, while playing in three and four parts on his violin, would sometimes sit before an organ, and add a bass on the pedals.[79]
Chapter XIII
The Organs in Leipsic Churches—Bach’s Method of Accompanying—The Pitch of Organs.
Thomas Church Organ
There were two organs in the Thomas Church, the larger of which dated from 1525. In 1721 it was enlarged by Scheibe, a builder of whom Bach had a very good opinion. In 1730 it was again improved, by giving the choir organ a keyboard of its own, instead of its being acted on by the great key-board as was formerly the case.
The organ contained:—