“Irh Diener, werthe Jungfer Braut
  Viel Gluecke zur heutgen Freude!”

and exclaiming that at the sight of her in her garland and wedding-garb the heart laughs out in rapture;—­and what wonder that lips and breast overflow with joy.  There are rules he wrote out for her instruction in thorough-bass with a note that others must be taught orally, and there is a love-song for soprano, which he must have written for her, to judge from the words, “Willst du dein Herz mir schenken.”  Upton declares this song to have been written during and for their first courtship.  A portrait of this ideal wife was painted by Cristofori and passed into the keeping of her stepson, Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach, but alas, it is lost while so many a less interesting face is repeated in endless pictures.

Twenty-eight years after her marriage this faithful woman stood by her husband’s side in his blindness and through the two operations by the English surgeon in Leipzig.  How must she have rejoiced when on July 18, 1750, he suddenly found that he could see and endure with delight the blessed sunshine!  How her heart must have sunk when a few hours later he was stricken with apoplexy and a high fever that gave him only ten more days of life!  At his death-bed stood his wife, his daughters, his youngest son, a pupil, and a son-in-law.  An old chorale of his was, as Spitta says, “floating in his soul, and he wanted to complete and perfect it.”  The original name had been, “When we are in the highest need,” but he changed the name by dictation now to “Before thy throne with this I come” (Vor deiner Thron tret ich hiemit).  The preacher said he had “fallen calmly and blessedly asleep in God,” and he was buried in St. Thomas’ churchyard; but later the grave was lost sight of, and his bones are now as unhonoured as his memory is revered.

It is a dismal task to write the epilogue to the beautiful life and death of this father of music.  The woman who had made his life so happy and aided him with hand and voice and heart,—­what had she done to deserve the dingy aftermath of her fidelity?

Bach left no will, and his children seized his manuscripts; what little money remained from his salary of 87 thalers a year (L13 or $65) they divided with the widow, now fifty years old.  Her husband’s salary was continued half a year longer, but the sons all went away to other towns, some of them to considerable success.  The mother and three daughters were left to shift for themselves.  Two years later they must sell a few musical remains and the town must aid them out of its funds.

In the winter ten years after her husband’s death, on Feb. 27, 1760, Anna Magdalena died, an alms-woman.  Her only mourners were her daughters and a fourth of the public school children, who were forced by the custom of the day to follow to the grave the body of the very poor.  In 1801 Bach’s daughter Regina was still living, a “good old woman,” who would have starved had there not been a public subscription, to which Beethoven contributed the proceeds of a composition.