The Salmon of Doubt

Some people say that the mathematical complexity of Bach renders it unemotional. I think the opposite is true. As I listen to the interplay of parts in a piece of Bach polyphony, each individual strand of music gathers hold of a different feeling in my mind, and takes them on simultaneous interweaving roller coasters of emotion. One part may be quietly singing to itself, another on an exhilarating rampage, another is sobbing in the corner, another dancing. Arguments break out, laughter, rage. Peace is restored. The parts can be utterly different, yet all belong indivisibly together. It’s as emotionally complex as a family.

And now, as we discover that each individual mind is a family of different parts, all working separately but together to create the fleeting shimmers we call consciousness, it seems that, once again, Bach was there before us. When you listen to the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, you don’t need a musicologist to tell you that something new and different is happening. Even two and three quarter centuries after it actually was new, you can hear the unmistakable thrumming energy of a master at the height of his powers doing something wild and daring with absolute self-confidence. When Bach wrote it, he put himself at the harpsichord instead of the viola he more usually played in ensembles. It was at a happy, productive time of his life when he was at last surrounded by some good musicians. The harpsichord traditionally played a supporting role in this kind of group, but not this time. Bach let rip.

And then it makes its move—running ... hurtling ... flying ... climbing ... clambering ... pushing ...

panting ... twisting ... thrashing ... pounding at the ground ... pounding ... pounding ... suddenly breaking away, running onward desperately, and then, with one last little unexpected step up in the bass, it’s home and free—the main tune charges in triumphantly and it’s all over bar the weeping and dancing

(i.e., the second and third movements).

The familiarity of the Brandenburgs should not blind us their magnitude. I’m convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy.

Penguin Classics Vol. 27: Bach—

Brandenburg Concertos 5 & 6, Violin Concerto in A Minor (English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britten)

THE

UNIVERSE

Frank the Vandal Things are rather complicated by the fact that one of them is an electrician called Frank the Vandal. That is, his friends, if he has any that aren’t in hospital, call him Frank, and I call him Frank the Vandal because every time he needs to get at any bit of wiring, he tends to hack his way through anything else that’s in the way to get at it—plasterwork, woodwork, plumbing, telephone lines, furniture, even other bits of wiring that he’s put in himself on previous raids. He is, I am assured, very good as an electrician, though I think he is maybe not very good as a human being. But I’m digressing here from the point I was trying to make, and have rather lost the thread because Frank just cut the power off since I did the last save. So, where was I? Ah yes. The house was virtually a complete wreck when I bought it. Not quite as much a wreck as it is when Frank’s been here, but nevertheless, it was pretty much an empty shell into which walls, floors, plumbing, and so on had to be put. When the walls have to be built, an expert (or so I’m told—not so sure about that myself, but in principle an expert) bricklayer comes into the house and builds them. I need floors and stairs and cupboards and things, so a carpenter, whistling a merry carpenter’s tune, comes round and plies his trade. Then a plumber comes round and dittoes. Then Frank the Vandal comes round to wrench some wiring into place, and of course the carpenter and plumber and so on have to come round again and make extensive repairs. I’m going to have to drop the subject of Frank because he’s not a part of the analogy I am by slow degrees attempting elegantly to construct. It’s just that he preys on my mind a bit at the moment and it’s difficult not to sit here feeling nervous while he’s in the house. So forget Frank. You’re lucky. You can.

Now the point is this. The house is here. Building this house is the purpose of the whole exercise. If I want anything done in it, I pick up the phone (assuming Frank hasn’t hacked through the line trying to get at a light switch) and someone comes round to the house and does it.

If I want to have some cupboards installed, I don’t have to do the following: I don’t have to have the house completely dismantled, shipped up to Birmingham where the carpenter is, put together again in a way that a carpenter understands, then have the carpenter work on it, and then have the whole thing dismantled again, shipped back down to Islington, and put together again so that it works as a house that I can live in.

So why do I have to do that with my computer? Let me put that another way so that it makes sense.