Re: GG: a poem inspired by GG's 1955 Goldbergs

["K. Berry" <kb@cs.umb.edu>]

     comments are welcome

I'm glad she wrote it, glad you posted it, glad to have read it :-).

    he hears the pattern around
            one simple melody.  

Not to get technical, but the Gb's are actually harmonic variations,
right, not melodic?

    Bach perspires over the keys,
	not getting it right, tries again.
		Outside, the summer dust rises

This has nothing to do with the poem, but is there any knowledge at all
of Bach's compositional process?  I don't recall seeing anything in the
Bach Reader or Wolff or anywhere else where Bach talks about this in any
detail.  I suppose it's pretty much indescribable, anyway.

(The one statement I do remember reading is from, I think, his little
textbook on bass lines, something like (I'm paraphrasing, obviously)
``of course, if you can't come up with a zillion good melodies on
demand, forget about being a composer'' :-).  And someone theorized this
is why GG never really took up musical composition -- he felt something
lacking in his melodies compared to Bach's or Beethoven's, which of
course he knew so well.)