"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." G.K. Chesterton

Saturday, May 29, 2010

A lesson from Bach

This anecdote has been attributed to the biography of young Johann Sebastian Bach.
One evening, Johann was playing his latest sonata to a German baroness at her estate. When he had finished, the baroness exclaimed with a bewildered delight: “Ah! Maestro! It was wonderful!… But what did you mean by it?" Bach promptly approached the keyboard again, and replayed the sonata. When he had finished, he turned to the baroness and explained: “That, dear madam, is what I meant.”

1 comment:

Kevin said...

I wonder what would happen if J.S Bach played his piece of music to Leonardo Da Vinci and Leonardo tried to relay what Bach was saying, but had no means to explain by words so he painted a huge wonderful painting and then exclaimed "This is what he was saying!". But Leonardo was trying to explain this to Shakespeare in which he wrote a literary masterpiece trying to explain what Leonardo was saying with such eloquence that it was like music to the ear....