Some years later, at the very height of his glory, Palestrina’s heart suffered its final blow.  In the words of Baini, “Lucrezia, la sua dolce consorte, after having piously accompanied the solemn procession for the transport of the body of Saint Gregory Nazianzeno from the church of the monks of S. Maria Campa Marzo to the Vatican the fourth of June, 1580, was assailed by a most oppressive malady.”

The attentions of her husband and the remedies of the medical art of that day kept her alive up to the first of July.  Then the sickness began anew and “neither the tears nor the voice of the loving companion prevailed against the inexorable scythe of death.”  On the 21st of July Lucrezia died.  The next day her body was received at the Vatican, Giovanni watching in the schoolroom of the chapel.

It is easy to picture the wild grief of this man, whom a previous anxiety had thrown into an almost mortal fever.  Yet he lived fourteen busy years, and in his old age he felt both fatigue and want, and was compelled to join the long list of those musicians who have appealed to their patrons for charity.  But at least his life, like Bach’s and that of many another, had proved that marriage is not always and necessarily a failure when set to music.

CHAPTER VIII.

BACH, THE PATRIARCH

The genealogy of the Bachs shows them to have been in the habit of marrying at least two or three times apiece, and of being very prolific.

Johann Ambrosius Bach, the father of “the Father of Modern Music,” had a twin brother, Johann Cristoph.  They were astonishingly alike in mind and manner and mien.  They suffered the same disorders and died nearly together.  Their wives, it is said—­horresco referens!—­could not tell them apart.  J. Christoph was sued for breach of promise by a girl whom he said he had discussed matrimony with and exchanged rings with, but tired of.  The Consistory ordered him to marry her, but he appealed to a higher court and was absolved from the tenacious woman whom he said he “hated so that he could not bear the sight of her.”  He married another woman four years later.

The great Bach, Johann Sebastian, was the youngest of six children.  His mother died when he was nine years old, but with Bachic haste his father remarried; the new wife was a widow and seemed to be in the habit of it, for she buried J. Ambrosius two months after the wedding.  The boy Sebastian was put in charge of an uncle.

At eighteen he was organist at Arnstadt—­at twenty-one he went on foot fifty miles to Luebeck to hear the great Buxtehude play the organ.  He had been given four weeks’ leave and took sixteen.  He was severely reproved for this by the Consistory; and the reproof is in existence still.  While they were about it, they reproved him for his wild modulations and variations, also for having played too long interludes, and then, when rebuked, playing them too short.  He was given eight days to answer, and waited eight months.  Then they remonstrated with him mildly again, adding, that they “furthermore remonstrate with him on his having latterly allowed the stranger maiden to show herself and to make music in the choir.”  His answer to this was simply that he had spoken about it to the parson.  Further explanation we have none.