Re: Best wishes to all Americans:

[Kate Clunies-Ross <goldbergs@TALK21.COM>]

 Jost Ammon <Jost.Ammon@GMX.DE>  wrote
Date: 14Sep 2001Fri8:37 am


>Theoretically the only appropriate music in a mimetic sense I can imagine is
>Art of the Fugue's last contrapunctus: a complex bundle of ongoing threads just
>stop into nothing.

>But as I've said - the idea of music is in my world the opposite of what has
>been going on, so there is nothing to hear for me.

I understand what you are saying. But I think that that is exactly why some
might  feel a need for music at a time like this. The atrocity that has
happened is terrible, cruel, and full of  hate and bigotry.  IMusic can be
an antidote to these things;  I believe it can help start, in however small
a way, a healing process, although of course  I cannot begin to comprehend
the pain suffered  by  the victims and their families and friends. Music is
full of positivity. It can uplift you, fill you with love,  and with hope
for the future. And at a time like this, humanity needs hope, not more and
more hatred, even if it is difficult not to feel hate for people who can
cause such indiscriminate pain.

So, to Jost's suggestion of the final contrapunctus from the Art of Fugue,
may I add the ninth contrapunctus? To me, it is life-affirming.  It opens
with one of the most exultant announcements of positive existence that I can
imagine....it seems to say"Here I am. I am alive!".  It defies the forces of
negativity.

That is how I hear it. And I would follow it with a choice that may well
seem obvious, even unimaginitive, to the members of this list; the Goldberg
Variations. In them you will find profound sadness, and thoughtfulness, but
also exuberant joy, just like life itself can bring (listen to variation 25
followed immediately by 26, for example). But above all, the Goldbergs bring
a sense of rebirth; they are a never ending circle, the final aria leading
us again back to the opening...

Perhaps my choices do not exactly contitute a requiem for the dead. But I
hope they are, as already suggested on this list , "medicine for the soul."

Kate