This [chaotic environment,] I felt, was only possible because all these types of order were partial, mere fragments that had split off from a central order; they might not have lost their creative force, but they were no longer directed toward a unifying center. Its absence was brought home to me with increasingly painful intensity the longer I listened. I was suffering almost physically, but I was quite unable to find a way towards the center through the thicket of conflicting opinions. ...There was a hush as, high above us, [a young violinist] struck up the first great D minor chord of Bach’s Chaconne. All at once, and with utter certainty, I had found my link with the center….The clear phrases of the Chaconne touched me like a cool wind, breaking through the mist and revealing the towering structures beyond. There has always been a path to the central order in the language of music, in philosophy and in religion, today no less than in Plato’s day and in Bach’s. That I now knew from my own experience.
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Now, I should like to say something else to you about the connection with music, primarily that of Bach, i.e. the Fugue or, put more simply, the canon.. .It has a great deal in common with my own motifs, which I make turn on various axes too. Nowadays I have such a powerful sense of relationship, of affinity, that when I am listening to Bach I frequently get inspired and feel an overwhelming instinct for his insistent rhythm, a cadence seeking something of the infinite. In the Fugue everything is based on a single motif, often consisting of just a few notes. In my work, too, everything revolves around a single closed contour..
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Already at the age of 21 I played the complete organ works of Bach - and this by memory. As a child and youngster I had been taught by one of the last master-students of the legendary Helmut Walcha, and I completely had been affected by this style of insight into Bach and the internal structures. This method of regarding the independent coherence of all the voices gave me a special comprehension of Bach and his philosophy. Lastly one can say that I have been growing up with Bach, even to this day. If you understand the free organ works (preludes, toccatas, fugues), the chorales, and especially the trio sonatas, you have an insight into Bach that others don’t have. Especially the soloistic and independent leadings of the three voices of the trio sonatas is artistically the major aim of an organist; and already the Orgelbüchlein, the part 5 of the Peters Edition, shows Bach in all his structural and emotional effects. Albert Schweitzer described the Orgelbüchlein as something where the tonal speech of Bach is unbeatable. The comprehension of the organ-Bach is an understanding of the counterpoint and the polyphonic structures, and the coherence of Bach himself.
Chaos provides order. Chaotic agitation and motion are needed to create overall, repetitive order. This ‘order through fluctuations’ keeps dynamic markets stable and evolutionary processes robust. In essence, chaos is a phase transition that gives spontaneous energy the means to achieve repetitive and structural order.
"I began to imagine orchestration where before I heard only the cacophony of randomness. Crazy people do that all the time, unless you buy into the notion that we have the ability to perceive order and connotation in ways closed off to the minds of "sane" people. I don't. Subscribe to that notion, I mean. We are not gifted. We are not magical. We are slightly or profoundly broken."
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I was reading of chaos that contained order; of information as the primal, creative force; of systems that, by design, fell apart so they could renew themselves; and of invisible forces that structured space and held complex things together. These were compelling, evocative ideas, and they gave me hope, even if they did not reveal immediate solutions.
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