Bernard Chasan wrote:

>>...  I have to assume that those slow inward grief stricken variations in
>>the Goldberg Variations are meant to express grief.  Any other response is
>>simply perverse.

and Mimi Ezust responded:

>Wait a minute, wait a minute, and hold on there, fella! Who told you
>that's what Bach meant? That's quite an intellectual leap, there.
>
>I love and live Bach and have for years, but when I press the star on my
>telephone I do not reach Bach and I cannot converse with him. And you
>can't either. I never HEARD any grief-stricken passages in the Goldbergs.
>Even if you told me about them, and hit me on the head with a rolling pin,
>I doubt if I'd recognize them as "grief." Don't you be telling me that if
>I don't hear "grief" in my Goldbergs then I have a perverse response
>setup.

I never meant to imply that everybody would be obligated to feel the same
emotional response.  I should have been clearer that it would have been
perverse of ME.

I am encouraged in my wrong-thinking by an interview with a violinist -
Christian Tetzlaff-published in the NYTIMES last week.  He is in NY to
play the complete Bach unnaccompanied sonatas and partitas in two concerts
on one day.  I have his excellent Virgin cd set of this stuff.  He has very
definite ideas concerning the meaning of the music- the famous chaconne is
a "Death Dance",for example.  I don't hear that in the music, and Mimi may
not either, but there you are.  It might be instructive for Mimi to read
the notes written by Edwin Aldwell to accompany his great recording of the
Well Tempered Clavier, Book 2.  Again, a very personal interpretation of
the meaning of each prelude and each fugue is offered up.  Figuratively
speaking these musicians may indeed have a Bach star on their telephones,
and undoubtedly they have a far clearer line than I do.  Mine may
correspond to two cans on the end of a string, but if I did not have it,
I would be the poorer.  Emotional connections always will be personal -
messages conditioned by the state of the person receiving the messages-
that is clear.

Once more- the Passions and Cantatas tell us that the emotions which
some of us hear expressed conform to the text.  And for this intensely
expressive yet public music my guess is that most listeners hear roughly
the same expressive ambience.  Based on what I hear in that music, I hear
what I claim I hear in the Goldberg Variations.  Mimi is of course, not
obligated to receive the same messages I do.  And I will agree that
there is much more to music than this - it is the awesome combination
of emotional expression and a sometimes almost mathematical structure
which gives classical music it power.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University