Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter, and once more, please accept my apologies 
for the immediacy of my reply, always for the same reason: 
the frailty of memory.  Unless I write down my thoughts as they occur,
i.e. "in real time" as computing jargon would have it,
what happens to be on my mind is irretrievably lost.

Thank you especially for reminding me of Charlotte's future career as 
Dean of Aletheia University, an indispensable role with unforeseeable 
consequences which had slipped my memory. Death, whether by her own hand,
or by an act of God, man, or nature, is not in the cards because 
Charlotte is indispensable. She will outlive everyone else, 
certainly myself, and in her old age, as she matures, or if you wish,
as she assumes the role of senior citizen, she will emulate
Diotima of Manteneia (Plato, Symposium [201 St.3 A]) to become the
Jakob Döhring Aletheia University Professor of Applied Lovemaking.
As of this afternoon she is accompanying on the piano her visitor's 
Moritz Schwiegel's rendition of Beethoven's song Zärtliche Liebe,
(Ich liebe dich so wie du mich), a composition which she herself
disdains as being mushy and sentimental.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd2rpyaY7ck

Ich liebe dich, so wie du mich,
Am Abend und am Morgen,
Noch war kein Tag, wo du und ich
Nicht teilten unsre Sorgen.

Auch waren sie für dich und mich
Geteilt leicht zu ertragen;
Du tröstetest im Kummer mich,
Ich weint in deine Klagen.

Drum Gottes Segen über dir,
Du, meines Lebens Freude.
Gott schütze dich, erhalt dich mir,
Schütz und erhalt uns beide.


I love you as you love me,
In the evening and the morning,
Nor was there a day when you and I
Did not share our troubles.

And when we shared them
They became easier to bear;
You comforted me in my distress,
And I wept in your laments.

Therefore, may God's blessing be upon you,
You, my life's joy.
God protect you, keep you for me,
And protect and keep us both.


Her own perferred lovesong she has adapted from Two Gentlemen of Verona:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8vHk038_VY
 
Who is Charlotte G.? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Charlotte let us sing,
That Charlotte is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

As Charlotte is advertising herself, Joachim arrives,
and is persuaded, rather reluctantly, to designate, and thereupon
to perform the lovesong most congenial to him, which turns out
to be from the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M99XFmCmeVc

Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,
So fang es heimlich an,
Dass unser beider Denken
Niemand erraten kann.
Die Liebe muss bei beiden
Allzeit verschwiegen sein,
Drum schließ die größten Freuden
In deinem Herzen ein.

Behutsam sei und schweige
Und traue keiner Wand,
Lieb' innerlich und zeige
Dich außen unbekannt.
Kein' Argwohn musst du geben,
Verstellung nötig ist.
Genug, dass du, mein Leben,
Der Treu' versichert bist.

Begehre keine Blicke
Von meiner Liebe nicht,
Der Neid hat viele Stricke
Auf unser Tun gericht.
Du musst die Brust verschließen,
Halt deine Neigung ein.
Die Lust, die wir genießen,
Muss ein Geheimnis sein.

Zu frei sein, sicher gehen,
Hat oft Gefahr gebracht.
Man muss sich wohl verstehen,
Weil ein falsch Auge wacht.
Du musst den Spruch bedenken,
Den ich zuvor getan:
Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,
So fang es heimlich an.

Finally Jonathan Mengs arrives, and Charlotte demands
of him that he too designate and sing his favorite lovesong.
When Jonathan declines, Charlotte says:
"Never mind. Hans Adelung confided to me that it was you
who had him conclude the Memorial Concert with the trumpet
version of 'Bist Du bei mir.' If you're too shy, Joachim 
and I will sing it for you; no trumpet this time. Just ourselves." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZaJLvbue3Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUnB776lv8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5r_fZ98514

Bist du bei mir, geh' ich mit Freuden
zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh'.
Ach, wie vergnügt wär' so mein Ende,
es drückten deine lieben [schönen]1 Hände
mir die getreuen Augen zu!

If you are with me, I will gladly go
to [my] death and to my rest.
Ah, how pleasant would my end be
if your dear, fair hands shut
my faithful eyes!

I'm too easily distracted, this time by Kirsten Flagstad.
She was the soprano of my childhood, and I couldn't resist 
the Youtube opportunity to listen to her sing 
"Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin" from Fidelio,
then the entire first act of the opera, after which it was time 
to go to bed.

The presentation of these four lovesongs will serve as a
commentary on Max Weber's Die rationalen und soziologischen 
Grundlagen der Musik, a treatise which Moritz Schwiegel wants
to discuss with Jonathan Mengs. They conclude that Weber is
wide off the mark, inasmuch as he seeks an historical basis 
for music whose significance pales in the light of its immediate
existential power, a power which Weber's biography seems to
me to corroborate.

From this critique of Weber's sociology of music, Mengs, Joachim,
Moritz - and Charlotte turn to a consideration of Weber's theories
of society as an expression of latter-day academic scholasticism.
That discussion will require of me so much preparation that I'm
not sure when I will be able to pull it off, - if ever.

In consequence of this theoretical disquisition, - be it because
she is offended, because she is inspired by it, persuaded 
or emboldened, Charlotte returns to Aletheia as a reformer, a saga
which will constitute the next chapter, whose composition must 
compete with my fascination for Plato's Symposium which I've started 
to read in the original, and with my determination to get a worm's 
eye view, - or a worm's brain's understanding - of quantum neural 
networks. 

And now to work. I hope Elizabeth's research project is funded.
Best wishes to you and Ned.

Jochen