John

I didn’t arrive at my opinions by accident. They came to me from my master, John Lewis. His piano classes were famous for the fact that no one ever got past the first measure. He could spend twenty minutes to half an hour just trying to get you to understand how your fingers made the phrases, how long the dots made the notes, how to choose what to emphasize. He was trying to teach us music.

His favorite was Bach. There are no recordings like his Bach choral works. Bach seems to be felt as a small composer. Glenn Gould saw him large and passionate and so did John. His Bach was larger than your heart could contain. It shook you until you could bear it no more. He found the music of his own soul in Bach and communicated it to us.

I wish there were somewhere to direct you where you could experience this yourself.