The Great God Pan
The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write "The Great God Pan" by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine "The Whirlwind" in 1890. Machen later extended "The Great God Pan" and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of supernatural transformations before dying and she is revealed to be the child of Mary and the god Pan.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Felix Mendelssohn significantly contributed to the renewed interest in Bach's work with his 1829 Berlin performance of the "St Matthew Passion", instrumental in setting off what has been called the Bach Revival. The "St John Passion" saw its 19th-century premiere in 1833, and the first performance of the "Mass in B minor" followed in 1844. Besides these and other public performances and an increased coverage on the composer and his compositions in printed media, the 1830s and '40s also saw the first publication of more vocal works by Bach: six cantatas, the "St Matthew Passion", and the "Mass in B minor". A series of organ compositions saw their first publication in 1833. Chopin started composing his 24 Preludes, Op. 28, inspired by the "Well-Tempered Clavier", in 1835, and Schumann published his "Sechs Fugen über den Namen B-A-C-H" in 1845. Bach's music was transcribed and arranged to suit contemporary tastes and performance practice by composers such as Carl Friedrich Zelter, Robert Franz, and Franz Liszt, or combined with new music such as the melody line of Charles Gounod's Ave Maria. Brahms, Bruckner, and Wagner were among the composers who promoted Bach's music or wrote glowingly about it.