And so it came about that with my prying nose I dipped into all composers, and found that the houses they erected were stable in the exact proportion that Bach was used in the foundations. If much Bach, then granted talent, the man reared a solid structure. If no Bach, then no matter how brilliant, how meteoric, how sensational the talents, smash came tumbling down the musical mansion, smash went the fellow's hastily erected palace. Whether it is Perosi--who swears by Bach and doesn't understand or study him--or Mascagni or Massenet, or any of the new school, the result is the same. Bach is the touchstone. Look at Verdi, the Verdi of _Don Carlo_ and the Verdi who planned and built _Falstaff_. Mind you, it is not that big fugued finale--surely one of the most astounding operatic codas in existence--that carries me away. It is the general texture of the work, its many voices, like the sweet mingled roar of Buttermilk Falls, that draws me to _Falstaff_. It is because of Bach that I have forsworn my dislike of the later Wagner, and unlearned my disgust at his overpowering sensuousness. The web he spins is too glaring for my taste, but its pattern is so lovely, so admirable, that I have grown very fond of _The Mastersingers_.
Bach is in all great, all good compositions, and especially is he a test for modern piano music. The monophonic has been done to the death by a whole tribe of shallow charlatans, who, under the pretence that they wrote in a true piano style, literally debauched several generations of students. Shall I mention names? Better disturb neither the dead nor the quick. In the matter of writing for more voices than one we have retrograded considerably since the days of Bach. We have, to be sure, built up a more complex harmonic system, beautiful chords have been invented, or rather re-discovered--for in Bach all were latent--but, confound it, children! these chords are too slow, too ponderous in gait for me. Music is, first of all, motion, after that emotion. I like movement, rhythmical variety, polyphonic life. It is only in a few latter-day composers that I find music that moves, that sings, that thrills.
How did I discover that Bach was in the very heart of Wagner? In the simplest manner. I began playing the _E-flat minor Prelude_ in the first book of the _Well-tempered Clavichord_, and lo! I was transported to the opening of _Götterdämmerung_.