Juozas Rimas Jr writes:

>I was totally confused by your imagery of the Fugue in E minor.  Were
>you talking about the 10th fugue (I have no musical education and therefore
>prefer numerical values)?  "Body parts", "pure evil"?

The 10th fugue is the right one.

>But maybe it's because I'm used to Gould's version.  The fugue is fast,
>elegant and almost comical, with no shade of evil in Gould's rendition.
>I'll try to borrow a copy of Richter to check for the gruesome sight.

I just listened to Schepkin, Gould, and Richter again.  I included Schepkin
since it's his version which gave me the imagery of a gruesome blood-bath
to begin with.  Having finished, I think that I've got a handle on the
different views that Juozas and I have of the E minor fugue.  What Juozas
recognizes as "almost comical" in Gould's version, I recognize as a
grotesque display of the pleasures involved in the vicious elimination of
an entire village of people.  Switch to Schepkin and the whole scene
becomes much more gruesome.  I didn't expect to find a version more
evocative of these images than Schepkin, but Richter takes it to another
level through increasing the brutalism and chaos.  On a macro basis, the
fugue conveys to me the all the worst that humans have within them, and
that includes a ghoulish pleasure in destroying other humans - physically
or spiritually.  It's a great piece of music, and it lasts only one minute.

Don Satz
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