“I tell you it is true, I feel it. My compositions also have no ideas. They show no charm of fancy, no mastery of materials. This cannot go on any longer.”
“But you greatly underestimate yourself, cousin,” said Johann Ernst, son of the twin brother of Sebastian’s father. “Would to God I could play as well as you do already at twenty! Everyone here is astonished at your work.”
“But what do they know about music here?” replied Sebastian, contemptuously.
“But we are astonished also,” interposed Herr Uthe, “and we think we know a little something about sacred music.”
“To be sure you do,” said Sebastian, “but your friendship for me makes you blind. You do not see my failings. No, no, I must be off. I must hear once more the great masters of the art and find out from them how to get on the right road again. I am going away at once.”
“Where will you go? Where will you find what you are longing for?”
“Where? Yes, that is the question,” said Sebastian, with a sad look in his eyes. “Really there are only two places where I expect to find what I need—in Nuremberg with Pachelbel,[21] or in Lübeck with Buxtehude.[22]”
“Both are certainly far enough away from here,” said Herr Uthe, dolefully.
“What matters distance?” answered Sebastian, with some warmth. “I would go to the ends of the earth if I could hear the great organists there. But, to cut matters short, I shall go to Lübeck in the morning.”
“Without permission?” asked Johann Ernst, very seriously.