| On March 21st, 1685, JohannSebastianBach was born here in Eisenach, Germany, right in this very room, over here in this corner, actually. Of course, 1985 was a big celebratory year for Bach lovers all over the world. There were lots of concerts and books and symposia, but I didn't notice any composer writing a musical composition about Bach. You know, a piece about what a great guy her was and everything. I thought it was high time that some composer did for Bach what Copland did for Lincoln, what Beethoven did for Wellington, what Tchaikovsky did for little Russians, and what Richard Strauss did for himself. So the next work is one of my own compositions entitled "BachPortrait" and I'd like to emphasize that the quotations spoken by the narrator actually do come from Bach's letters. The man only had two things on his mind. One of them was music, and the other was... |
