The style of the organ works is eminently serious at all
times, as befits the character of the instrument. But Bach
uses subjects with regular dance rhythms, as well as those
of the choral type ; and those which are most popular are
generally the rhythmic fugues. In the toccatas, fantasias,
and preludes he is but rarely rhythmic to any pronounced
extent. He finds figures which have a natural animation
without too much lilt, and welds them into great sequences,
which have a coherence of their own, from the point of view



1 82 THE ART OF MUSIC

of tonal design, without having anything of the sonata vhar-
acter about them. The sonata mood and type of form is
conspicuously absent, and most happily so. That grew up
under secular conditions, and the style represents totally
different habits of mind and manner from those which were
natural to the men who cultivated the old polyphonic forms.
Bach succeeded in finding forms for himself which in relation
to his polyphonic methods are completely satisfying to the
mind, and which admitted of wide range of modulation and
variety and system in the presentation of subjects without
foregoing the advantages of clearly recognisable part-writing.
