0′00″ What I wondered was whether or not you would comment on how you perceive the mind of 05″ Bach whether you perceive it as uh . . . . . 10″ . . . . . . . . . . . . a mind that was capable of pure mathematics or a mind that 15″ was tempered by emotions do you see I think that it’s through 20″ the music we get an idea of the mind and I wondered what yours was. 25″ 30″ 35″ I it seems 40″ to me when I thi when I think of Bach I I’m not so sure that I think of a mm a 45″ mind as much as uh uh 50″ as I think of a a 55″ a person whose life was uh dedicated to music. 1′00″ It it’s quite uh 05″ I don’t I don’t even know how h 10″ how long his life was. But I uh I do know that he 15″ had many children, that many of them became uh c com- 20″ posers, that he was uh constantly uh writing music, because each uh 25″ each Sunday must have uhm 30″ been the occasion for another first (laughs) perfor- mance. And 35″ besides that one hears of his visits to uh other mu- 40″ sicians. In And at that time it wa it was not 45″ easy to travel but I’v I’v I’ve often thought of his uh 50″ leaving wherever he was and going uh 55″ north to to visit Buxtehude. 2′00″ H h he he . . . . . . . . . . . uh must 05″ w with all those children, and with his admir- 10″ ation for other musicians and for his own constant activity, 15″ he must not have taken any time to divide himself into 20″ on the one hand a mind and on the other 25″ hand uh uh emotions hmm? He must have been all 30″ h altogether uh one person constantly active. 35″ I think what uh . . . . . . . 40″ what it’s hard t ah what I find hard to have explained is what it is 45″ in the conception of the music which seems 50″ so mathematically intricate (interrupting) I I think mathematics is the 55″ wrong word. uhm 3′00″ It h his his 05″ ah Bach’s music is characterized I believe 10″ by uh . . . . 15″ starting with a rather simple uh 20″ bu uh n simple’s the wrong word uhw uh starting with a short mu- 25″ sical uh motive. 30″ And then uh 35″ through repetition and variation to of that motive 40″ to bring 45″ a . . . . piece of music into exist- ence. 50″ And 55″ And uh uh Schoenberg teaching us this said uhm 4′00″ when asked what variation was 05″ he said variation is also repeti- tion 10″ with some things changed 15″ and some things not. 20″ The uh 25″ other thing that characterizes uhm Bach’s music 30″ is that if you . . . 35″ |
John Cage and Anne Gibson (in italics)