FUGUE

Robert, this one is for you. On your birthday. Bach played by Gould. On his death day. Unoriginal and morbid. I know. But then again. Listen to this, and then think of all those who inspired Gould, all those Russians, such as Rosalind Turek, and all those Russians whom he then in turn, in an act of heightened generosity paid back, and inspired in 1957 when he was a young and ravishingly rapid, dashing man in Moscow. Tatiana Nicolajewa never played Bach other than by stepping on the pedals all the time. All the time. Such was the time then. All those Russians who never tasted the Baroque and its excesses! They were all coming out of the Romantic tradition. They were all in love with Bach, sublimely. How to have him? How to accede him? How to do him? But things are simple really. And constant. What Bach wanted was God, and what God wanted was to touch Bach. Gould understood this when he got older, and was infinitely more in touch. We all get what we want, if we listen, if we come. For the touch and the solitude. For the love. En courante.