we will learn to understand each other

i am allowing myself to be immersed in the c# minor prelude and fugue (bwv 849).

i've always said i don't believe in marriage... and now, like some god, Bach is forcing me to compromise my morals: a marriage this must be: for better or for worse.

playing a five voice fugue well is much akin to, i imagine, reading an alethiometer. in His Dark Materials, Lyra subconsciously enters a trance-like state to keep the questions, myriad symbols, various levels of meaning attached to each symbol, and answers ever in focus. too much is happening spiritually for her body or mind to be concerned with the outside world; too many layers, too much potential energy...

now apply all of that to a fugue: a big, thick, dark, miasmic, macrocosmic, microcosmic onion. learning it can be ... is hellacious. physically painful.

but

playing it is a religious experience.

one day, soon, we will learn to understand each other.