Dear Nathaniel,

Grandma and I have been talking about you several times
each day, and I have been thinking about you much oftener
than that. Thank you very much for your letter. This
answer has turned out to be much much longer than I 
intended or than is appropriate. You certainly needn't
compose a reply, and I'm not offended or disappointed,
if you have no time even to read what I have written.

The sound of the Mass in B minor travels far. I can hear
it now, wafting through your New Haven courtyard. I have
pondered for years the contradictory circumstance that
in some instances, where the ancient text is plural,
e.g. "Laudamus te", Bach chooses a solo voice to tell
the story, and in other instances, where the text
is singular, e.g. "Credo in unum Deum," he resorts
to a chorus. As I think about it now, it occurs to me
that maybe Bach was sensitive to the implications of 
the text in a different way than was the committee
of Church Fathers that wrote it in Nicaea, 325 A.D.

When and if, and only if you have time, tell me more
about the Amadeus Ensemble, about what you have been
practicing, what you have been performing, what
sort of audiences, and, not least, the finances
of the project. I'd like to know more about the
musicians you have recruited and how they help
(or hinder) you.

The question sometimes arises in my mind, when I
consider the unavoidable oblivion to which my own
literary efforts are undoubtedly condemned, that
maybe the well-known composers are only the "tip
of the iceberg" of musical production, that in the
libraries of churches, universities, temples, cities
and towns, there may be manuscripts of extraordinarly
valuable music awaiting (your) discovery. Internet
searches might be a way to begin. I would offer my
help, if you wanted it.

I have also, for years, thought about the anomaly
that while in literature there has been deliberate
recapitulation of style: think about all the epic
poems that have imitated Homer, all the sonnets
that have imitated Petrarch, and consider especially
the recapitulation of architectural patterns, - we
are still building court houses that look like the
Acropolis, - in music the tradition of imitation
and parody of past achievements is sparse and
superficial - to me the musical tradition seems
almost frivolous, like the fashions of women's clothes.

If I were sixty years younger, I would, - and I might
even yet at age 79, try to exploit the analytic and
mimetic powers of the digital computer to parody
and imitate classical music, - say Bach fugues or
Scarlatti sonatas. Such a project would present
very instructive access to the music, might even
generate something playable, that just maybe,
audiences would pay to hear.

Finally - very much optional for you to think about
or even read - my meditation on your conducting as
a demonstration of social - as opposed to individual
consciousness. Even if your philosophy survey course
gets to the Classical Renaissance of the 16th and 17th
centuries, it will most likely skip over the profound
intellectual significance of the Protestant Reformation
in focussing attention on the isolated individual 
whose bond to reality was his "faith", who was separate
from the group and the congregation, confronting both
his maker and his fellow human all by himself. This
reduction of reality to individual consciousness was 
subsequently memorialized in Descartes' famous dictum,
cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I can be sure that I am. 

None of Descartes' successors, not Locke or Berkeley,
Hume or Kant, Hegel or Schelling, Schopenhauer or 
Kierkegaard was able to reestablish the spiritual
social bond whose existence had been misunderstood,
ignored or denied. Your conducting demonstrates (to me)
a bridge between your own understanding of the music
which you communicate to your musicians, an understanding
which they and ultimately the audience receives from you.
So why not, I ask, postulate the existence of a social,
a communal consciousness that becomes explicit in the
musical performance, a communal consciousness that is
definable with an accuracy no less and no greater than
the definition to which the classic individual consciousness
is susceptible.

This has turned into a much longer letter than I intended.
Given how much work you have, and given the other demands
on your time, you shouldn't even begin to try to answer it.

My thoughts travel to New Haven with the same tenacity
with which the notes of the B Minor Mass reach Konnarock.

Yoyo