To be a good player

Bach was once complemented on his organ playing:
“There is nothing remarkable about it.  All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself.”

Quoted by Johann Friedrich Köhler, Leipzig, after 1776.  Hans-Joachim Schulze, ed. Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs, 1750-1800. Bach-Dokumente, III. 1972, no. 848.

Cited in: Wolf, Christoph (1998) The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters in Documents.  New York: Norton, p.412.

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