Gould in D Major

I know you all are enoying the soothing sounds of Gould and I shouldn’t intrude into this Bachian respite but I will.

Here is your WTF moment of the day.

20 kids? How did he find the time to write music?

@SanFranLefty: He had to write music to be performed in his church every Sunday. I seem to remember that he made a business trip that lasted some few months and when he got home his wife and a couple of the kids were dead. Also, which was the now-famous piece he wrote on spec that was put in a drawer and forgotten? Goldberg V? there’s a nice account in a book by a violinist learning to play the Chaconne going to visit a master fiddle player who asked him did he dance to the music, the gigues and chaconnes. Young V was amazed. there is then a lovely account of the older man teaching him how to dance to Bach. If anyone’s interested I’ll look it all up. I have the violinist book.

@SanFranLefty: As read on Car Talk – answers given by 6th graders on tests:

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.