Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1903 — Thirsty for a Chord. [ARTICLE]

Thirsty for a Chord.

The Duke of Saxe-Weimar once invited John Sebastian Bach, the Nestor of German music, to attend a dinner at the palace. Before tbe guests sat down to the feast Bach was requested to give an improvisation. The composer seated himself at the harpsichord, and straightway forgot all about dihner and everything else. He played so long that at last the duke touched him on the shoulder, and said: “We are very much obliged, master, but we must not let the soup-get cold.”

Bach started to his feet and followed the duke to the dining-room without uttering a word. But he was scarcely seated when he sprang up, rushed back to the Instrument like a madman, struck a few chords, and returned to the dining-room, evidently feeling much better.

“I beg your highness’ pardon,” he explained, “but you interrupted me In a series of chords and arpeggios on the dominant seventh, and I could not feel at ease until they were resolved into the tonic. It is as if you snatched a glass of wafer from the lips of a man dying of thirst. Now I have drunk the glass and I am content.”