That Bach always restricts his choral elaboration to the end of illustrating the sentiment of the words with which the theme is illustrated would be saying too much. Certainly he often does so, as in such beautiful examples as “O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde gross,” “Schmücke dich, meine liebe Seele,” and that touching setting of “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein” which Bach dictated upon his deathbed. But the purpose of the choral prelude in the church worship was not necessarily to reflect and emphasize the thought of the hymn. This usage having become conventional, and the organist being allowed much latitude in his treatment, his pride in his science would lead him to dilate and elaborate according to a musical rather than a poetic impulse, thinking less of appropriateness to a precise mood (an idea which, indeed, had hardly became lodged in instrumental music in Bach’s time) than of producing an abstract work of art contrived in accordance with the formal prescriptions of German musical science. The majority of Bach’s works in this form are, it must be said, conventional and scholastic, some even dry and pedantic. Efforts at popularizing them at the present day have but slight success; but in not a few Bach’s craving for expression crops out, and some of his most gracious inspirations are to be found in these incidental and apparently fugitive productions.