GUSTAFSON, Lars
The Silence of the World before Bach
There must have been a world before
the
Trio
Sonata
in D, a world before the
A minor Partita
,
but what kind of a world?
A Europe of vast empty spaces, unresounding,
everywhere unawakened instruments
where the
Musical
Offering
, the
Well-
tempered
Clavier
never passed across the keys.
Isolated churches
where the soprano-line of the Passion
never in helpless love twined round
the gentler movements of the flute,
broad soft landscapes
where nothing breaks the stillness
but old woodcutters' axes,
the healthy barking of strong dogs in winter
and, like a bell, skates biting into fresh ice;
the swallows whirring through summer air,
the shell resounding at the child's ear
and nowhere Bach nowhere Bach
the world in a skater's silence before Bach.