Dear Nathaniel,

Your essay about Hebel's Unverhofftes Wiedersehen so charmed me
that yesterday after I returned from Logan I spent the rest of the
evening reading and thinking about the topics you broached, learning
about the Swedish town of Falun and its mines, and wistfully
confronting my ignorance about almost everything. I remembered
vaguely a title Das Bergwerk von Falun by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
I thought it was a short story; it turned out to be a play. There
was also a work by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and surprisingly, Richard
Wagner. I haven't (yet) pursued these leads.

Falun, I learned, is the site of a series of mine disasters in
the 16th and 17th centuries, one of which resulted in the chemical
embalming of a victim and the rediscovery of his undecomposed body
50 years later. The composition of Unverhofftes Wiedersehen was 
contemporary with the rapid development of modern inorganic chemistry,
whose marvels provided the template of various literary works,
including Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften. Unverhofftes Wiedersehen
also requires consideration as a questionable "defense of marriage"
tract, with the clear implication that even prenuptial love is
everlasting.

This morning I awoke with Unverhofftes Wiedersehen on my mind;
as soon as I was dressed I scurried into the dining room to retrieve
from the bookshelves my single volume of Adorno and six volumes
of Ernst Bloch's writings which I had never read, I suspect from
chagrin and envy, because it was just such compositions which I
craved to write myself, - and realized that I lacked the wit and
the discipline - and perhaps also the supportive environment that
might have made it possible for my dreams come true ...

Bloch's writings are meticulously indexed; I found citations to
Hebel, but none to Unverhofftes Wiedersehen. If you have the 
pertinent Bloch - Hebel references, I'd be grateful ... Meanwhile
some tentative thoughts: Your teacher's distinction between poetic 
time and historic time is provocative and very congenial. However I
would suggest a somewhat different nomenclature:
Since history = myth = fiction = poetry, I would distinguish between
poetic - or better "subjective" time on the one hand, and chronological
or objective time on the other. I'm reminded of the line of Rilke's
Sonett an Orpheus (12)

"Und mit kleinen Schritten gehn die Uhren
neben unserm eigentlichen Tag."

which describes the tiny steps of clocks ticking by the side of
our actual day. History's pretentious claim to chronological time
has long seemed to me an abject failure. In this context, keep
in mind Kierkegaard's disparaging dismissal of the "world-historical",
(verdens-historisk) i.e. the Hegelian denial of the impermeability
of poetic (subjective) time to chronology. Goethe's repudiation
of Newtonian mechanics is of similar provenance.

You will, I suspect, be sympathetic to my observation that the
transformation (or sublimation) of time is the essence of music.
The conductor's down-beat is forever and always the beginning
of a new epoch. No one understands that better than yourself!
That's the significance in Chapter 1 of Die Freunde of Magus'
introducing his administration by performing the Toccata
Adagio and Fugue in C.

In Chapter 16 of Die Andere I describes the performance of 
Kantate #197 as a wedding concert
http://home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer/andere/K16.TXT
You don't expect you to wade through all 19 pages of that chapter's
literary wetlands, but here's the section that describes the
beginning of the concert. The opening reference to the "traurigen
Bassisten" refers to a sad faced bass soloist by whose melancholy
expression Doehring had been distracted:

(English translation below.) 
Waehrend Doehring ueber den traurigen Bassisten nachdachte,
als den Verachteten und deshalb den wahren Boten Gottes, hatte
der Laerm hunderter von zusammenschlagender Haende sich aufs
Irrsinnige gesteigert, und hatte die lieblichen, wenn auch
ungeordneten Klaenge des sich stimmenden Orchesters vor sich
weggefegt.  Selbst die Paukentoene, diese Zeugen goettlicher
Gegenwart, waren verstummt.  Der Dirigent war erschienen, und als
Doehring seinen Blick wieder erhob stand er schon auf dem Podium,
wie ein kleiner Goetze der jetzt ueber diese Aula herrschte.
Klein war er tatsaechlich, mit schwarzem Haar in schwarzem Frack
verneigte er sich majestaetisch nach allen Seiten, nahm dann den
nadelartigen Dirigentenstab vom Pult, und eroeffnete seine
Partitur, dieselbe meinte Doehring zu erkennen welche auf den
eigenen Knieen lag.  Er hob seine rechte Hand, und alle Augen der
Musikanten zielten auf die Nadelspitze.  Jetzt endlich waltete
die ersehnte Stille in dem hohen Saal, und wie das Orchester den
Niederschlag des Stabes erwartete, als Eroeffnung einer neuen,
abgesonderten, von der Musik beherrschten Spanne der Zeit, so
auch Doehring.  Mit dem ersten Ton, gemischt von Trompeten,
Pauken Blaesern und Geigen, bemerkte er es, wie sich der Raum des
Gefuehls und des Urteils verwandelte, und er wuszte, dass dieser
Akkord ihn jetzt aus einem Traum erweckte in dem er bisher fast
lebenslang, vom Schlafe betaeubt, gewandelt war, und das was er
jetzt erkannte, was er jetzt sah, was er jetzt hoerte, die
Wirklichkeit war.  Er sah Alpenwiesen bunt mit Blumen unter einem
wolkenfreien blauen Himmel fernumrandet mit gletschergekroenten
Gipfeln, und erkannte sofort, dass es die Wiesen am Healy Pass
waren, die er vor Augen hatte.  Die Musik aber ruhte nicht.  Sie
schweifte fort.  In allen Winkeln einstigen Erlebens suchte sie
ihn auf.  War bisher sein Dasein ueber unzaehlige Orte, in
ungezaehlten Zeitspannen zerstreut gewesen, so dass er sich
selbst, sein Ich, nur mit Muehe darin hatte entdecken koennen,
und dass es ihm oft geschienen war, als ginge er, oder waere er
verloren gegangen und vermoechte sich selbst, wie Scherben eines
zerbrochenen Gefaeszes, nicht mehr aufzulesen, so heilte die
Musik diese Diaspora der Seele.  Nun strebten sie alle wieder zu
ihm zurueck, die verteilten Orte und die getrennten Zeiten wo er
gelebt hatte, und waren durch den Zauber dieser gegenwaertigen
Musik in ihm wieder vereinigt.  Die Scherben des Lebens waren
saemtlich wiedergefunden, und in diesen Toenen, in dieser Musik,
waren sie wie in einem wunderbaren Kunstwerk Gottes entgueltig
zusammengefuegt.  Diese Wiederherstellung des Zerstreuten, diese
wiederentdeckte Einheit alles Erlebten und Erlebbaren war es, was
die Zuversicht bedingte.  Die einheitliche Vorstellung der
Ganzheit und Gueltigkeit seines, Jakob Doehrings ueber ein
Menschenalter verstreuten Daseins, das war sein Gott.  Der Chor
hatte mit seiner Behauptung eingesetzt, und wiederholte sie in
fugenhafter Steigerung.  Er hoerte das Weben der vertrauten
Gotteshaende, und das die unuebersichtlichen Pfade eines ganzen
Lebens hindurchwaehrende Vertrauen.  Er wuenschte, dass auch
Dorothea dies hoeren moechte, aber er konnte sie jetzt darauf
nicht hinweisen, denn was immer es war, das ihm Fassung gegeben
hatte, dies Leben durchzuhalten, was immer es ihm ermoeglicht
hatte die Geheimnisse seines Erlebens in ungezaehlten Vorlesungen
auszuschuetten, vor Menschen die ihn kaum oder garnicht
verstanden, was immer ihn befaehigt hatte die beruflichen und
menschlichen Spannungen denen er von Tag zu Tag und von Woche zu
Woche ausgeliefert war, zu bewaeltigen, und nicht zuletzt, was
ihm die Kraft verliehen hatte mit der Hingabe seiner selbst,
Dorothea, dieses gute und doch verwirrte Wesen neben ihm, vor ihr
selber und vor aller Welt zu schuetzen, diese Fassung war nun
dahin.  Er hatte noch gerade Zeit die Partitur auf seinen Knieen
zu schlieszen und ein weiszes Taschentuch aus seiner Rocktasche
zu entbinden, eh die Traenenstroeme ueber seine Wangen fluteten.
Um so wenig als moeglich aufzufallen, beugte er sich vorwaerts
und verbarg sein Gesicht in den mit dem Taschentuch bekleideten
Haenden.  Die Musik spielte fort, und der Chor wiederholte seine
Botschaft mit anschwellender Betonung, "Gott ist unsere
Zuversicht, wir vertrauen seinen Haenden."

======================================================
English translation of the above:

While Doering pondered the melancholy visage of the base soloist
as perhaps the face of him who was despised and rejected, and
therefore the true messenger of God, the chaotic noise of 
hundreds of clapping palms had surged to the level of insanity,
sweeping away the lovely, albeit disordered notes of the orchestra
getting in tune. Even the drums, those sentinels of the divine
presence, could no longer be heard. The conductor had appeared,
and as Doehring looked up, he saw him ascending the podium,
a stand-in deity asserting his dominion over this auditorium.
Diminutive indeed, tousled dark hair matching the color of
his tail coat, he bowed majestically in all directions,
retrieved from the music stand the needle-like baton, and opened
the score, the same, thought Doehring, as was resting on his
own knees. The conductor's arm was raised high, and all musicians'
eyes were focussed on the needle. Now at long last the longed
for silence reigned, and as the orchestra was intent on the opening
downbeat, so Doehring waited for the sudden onslaught of a new,
separate overwhelming wave of music and of time. Suddenly the barrier
of silence was broken, music as from heaven flooded the hall, and
Doehring noticed how, with the initial chord of drums and trumpets,
strings and woodwinds there was a transformation of the space of
feeling and of judgment, knowing then that he was at last awakening
from the nightmare that had been his life, and that what he now heard,
what he now saw, what he now understood was real and true, was the
sole reality that he would ever, that he could ever know. He saw
under a cloudless blue sky, meadows speckled with blue and pink,
orange and crimson flowers, alpine lakes ringed in the distance with
glacier-capped mountains, and recognized immediately the landscape
he was crossing to be Healy Pass. The music sped on; it needed no
rest.  It sought and it found him in all the nooks and crannies of
his previous existence.  If heretofore his life had been scattered
to many locations, had been fragmented in countless periods of time,
so that it required much effort for him to rediscover himself,
and if it had often seemed to him as if he were or were about to
become lost, and was unable to recollect or reassemble these
shards of a broken vessel, now, at last this music redeemed
the diaspora of his soul.

Finally they all, the scattered occasions, the distributed
places of his existence were caused to coalesce, were made
to fuse by the music's simultaenous magic. The shards of his
life had, all of them, been recovered, and in these melodies,
with these chords they had found their ultimate unity in the
holy miracle of his consciousness. This restoration of what had
almost been lost, the recovered unity of all that he had ever
and could ever experience, this epiphany of his being was the
basis of his confidence and of his faith. The unitary awareness
of the integrity and validity of his, Jakob Doehring's existence,
stretching from the dawn of his memory to the present moment was
for him the ultimate intimation of the divine, the blessing
bestowed by the hand of God.  The chorus introduced itself and
asserted its message in a powerful fugue, in whose recurring
melodies Doehring thought he heard fulfillment of the text:
the workings of the faithful hands of God, and trust as enduring
as the cadences that found no end. Doehring wished that Dorothea
also might hear all this, but he was just now unable to point it
out to her, for whatever it was that had made it possible for him
to survive, whatever it was that had made it possible for him to
tell in uncounted lectures the secrets of his existence to an
audience that understood him barely if at all, whatever it was
that had enabled him to cope with the professional and inter-
personal tensions with which he had to work from day to day and
from week to week, and not least, whatever it was that had provided
him with the energy to protect from herself and from an uncaring
world, Dorothea, this well-meaning but confused creature next to
him, whatever it was, was exhausted.  He barely had time to close
the heavy score resting on his knees and to extract a white
handkerchief from his coatpocket, before streams of tears started
to roll down his cheeks.  To make himself as inconspicuous as
possible, he bent forwards and hid his face in the handkerchief
draped over the palms of his hands.  The music continued, and the
chorus repeated its message with ever growing insistence:
"Gott ist unsere Zuversicht, wir vertrauen seinen Haenden."
"God is our Refuge, in His hands lies our trust."

====================================

In this instance, I much prefer the German, whose formal dignity
protects it against the puddles of sentimentality.

I've obviously written far too much, and please don't feel that
you owe me an answer. Indeed, if you've even read this far, it's I
who is obligated to thank you.  But please do let me know the dates
of the G&S and Beethoven performances, and of anything else you
think Grandma and I should attend.

Jochen