The Strange Connection Between Bach and The World Trade Center Attacks of September 11, 2001

A. Survivor

P.S. a couple of personal thoughts.

Regarding the collapse of the building, I heard a structural engineer describe on a talk show, that night, exactly what happens to a steel building in a fire. I know this stuff, and yet the possibility of collapse never entered my mind until I was told that it was going to happen. Even then, I was visualizing a falling over rather than a vertical collapse. There have been some recent disasters which happened the same way, within the last year or so, and I knew about them, and about the mechanism, yet it never even entered my mind that it would happen in this building. I've seen and marveled at the mammoth size of the beams and girders in the building, and knew that they were fireproofed with a thick protective layer of this reddish brown stuff (the asbestos had been removed). These prior impressions might be responsible for my mental block.

There was a warehouse fire in Worcester which killed nine firemen, some of whom had gone back in to rescue others who had gotten lost. The structural steel heated up, softened, and down came the roof. The same thing happened in the city, several months ago, at a car dealership. Talk about mental blocks. I was horrified the next morning when I saw the video of the conflagration just above me, and then watched the building collapse.

By the way, our local fire department almost lost a man in a simple wood frame house a few years ago when a floor collapsed he dropped into the burning room below. He was very lucky to get out.

So, take care.

P.P.S. Found out today that our daughter is going in on Friday, Saturday to help with the rescue and recovery efforts. The city is asking for help from small squads throughout the state, because of problems they have had with "freelancers" - I'm not sure what that means, but I'll let you know when I find out. Hope she stays out of trouble.

September 29 (I think), 2001

Hi Clayt - here's a follow up on one of my adventures. It was in the NY Times, and it refers to the woman who had stopped on the 21st floor, the one whom I thought looked exhausted.

Incidentally, my daughter was there last weekend as part of the Tioga County volunteer group. The City had been having all sorts of problems with local EMS "freelancers", so they went to a state-wide effort to use official companies of volunteers (like Campville), to maintain some sort of discipline. The locals were wandering off, doing their own thing, and in some cases, looting.

She said the NYC cops and firemen were wonderful, and did everything they could to make them comfortable. She and a couple of others even got a private guided tour from one of NYC's finest, who took them along the police line (the feds had half, and the NYPD had half) until he found a buddy who let them go through.

Switching gears, I'm going back to work on Monday, the first, in a trailer at Newark Airport. What a comedown. The Port is splitting us up into New Jersey and New York groups, pretty much determined by how we get to work. After six or eight weeks, the plan is to move us into permanent offices in Newark, which won't be bad because PATH goes there from Hoboken. In the long run, we'll end up back in the City.

I'd expected to be laid off, but instead they paid all of us to stay home for the last couple of weeks, while new office space was being prepared. I couldn't move for the first few days, from a combination of really sore muscles and a vicious cold which set in around Thursday. my daughter told me that was typical of a smoke event.

I made good use of my time, or at least I think so, doing a lot of writing. Rosemary hasn't been happy, but some day she, too, will be famous. At least that's what I've been telling her. Actually, I feel like Mozart, trying to finish his Requium, but don't let that get around. I've heard a lot of talk lately about obsession.

I've made a fascinating discovery in the Goldberg Variations. They have been called Bach's greatest secular work, but I'm convinced that the old fox hid a complete Latin Mass in them. You've probably never counted them, but the set includes the theme (Aria) and thirty variations. After the final variation, the theme repeats.

My very strong suspicion is that he noticed that the Aria, which he had written some years before for his wife, was perfectly suited to the words Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy, which is in Greek, and was the starting point of the Mass itself and of all it's musical settings.

At any rate, I bought a CD by Glen Gould a few years ago, to see if the Goldbergs would put me to sleep. That is why they were written, according to my favorite legend. Anyway, I eventually bought the score and tried working some of them out on the piano. I found them charming, and have since spent a lot of time trying to learn the ones within my capabilities. I could tell, right off the bat, that some of them were definitely not written as harpsichord pieces, but were much more suited for the organ, with its ability to carry a sustained melodic line. At first I assumed that he was recycling some little preludes and postludes which he had ad-libbed over the years, but then I noticed that some of the pieces had a distinctly vocal style.

I found, more or less by accident, that one of them (19) made a perfect "Allelulia", which pleased me to no end. Of course, you can't have an Allelulia without an Amen, and guess what. Number 18 makes a perfect Amen. Things started to get interesting.

The minimum number of parts of the Mass which are traditionally set to music are the Kyrie (the only part in Greek), the Gloria (Glory to God in the highest), the Credo (I believe in one God), the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) which is usually set with a separate Hosanah, and the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), in that order. The old mass had many more prayers, some of which are set in the larger musical pieces.

Once I suspected a pattern, I quickly identified the Sanctus. It's Number 9, and it fits like a hand in a glove. Number 10, a little fugue, goes great as a Hosanah, and comes right where it should, just after the Sanctus. To make a long story short, I have identified at least nineteen pieces which line up with parts of the old Mass. A few of the melodies are elaborate chants, which have a looser form than a conventional song. Listen to Variation 12, with the strange sounding melody set against a pattern of three repeated bass notes. This one bothered me right from the start.

It's actually a setting of the Pater Noster (the Lords Prayer), in a chant form. If your recording doesn't go too fast, which most do, listen for the pattern - Pater Noster qui es in coelis (Our Father who art in Heaven), followed by Sanctificetur nomen Tuum (Hallowed be thy name), Adveniat regnum tuum (Thy kingdom come), Sicut in coelo, et in terra (On earth as it is in heaven, and so on. Lets face it, there aren't all that many melodies that can accommodate Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie (Give us this day our daily bread).

Each new identification made it easier to find other candidates, because I still have my old St. Joseph's Daily Missal, which I was given in eighth grade for my Confirmation, and which has the complete Latin Mass with a translation. Latin was eliminated by the Catholic Church about forty years ago, and the old structure is gone, so anyone today would have a tough time making the connection. On the other hand, I grew up with it. In addition, I'm familiar with choral styles from my choir director days, and have heard a lot of sung masses, including the old chants. Although I have forgotten most of the vocabulary, I feel perfectly comfortable listening to something sung in Latin, which wouldn't sound at all alien to me, as would, for example, something sung in Bulgarian.

Mike and Jody came up to visit us last night, and I was explaining why the kitchen table is taken up by my other computer. (Rosemary has been very tolerant about this whole thing, although I wouldn't use the word "supportive". I've been making copies of the pieces, note by note, and superimposing the words, and it's occupied me day and night since I've been home. I've been waking up in the middle of the night to come down and work. I'm trying to get enough put together in a printable form to submit it for copyright, not so much for publication, as to establish precedence. I want my name etched, however tinily (the spell checker isn't any help here - I'm trying to say "however really, really, small", like "in the style of Tiny Tim", but that might be a bad analogy), in the history of musicology, and I'm running out of time.

Returning to Mike, I was explaining my theory to him, and was showing him the old "Last Gospel", which used to be the final prayer of the Mass (In the beginning was the Word), when I noticed something that I had missed earlier.

The very last variation is the Quodlibet, which nobody would know about, except that Bach wrote it at the top of the sheet. This is an old music form in which two completely different songs are blended together, so that what you hear is a perfectly good song, but in which, the two melodies both stand out. The classical story about this particular variation is that one of the songs has a son telling his mother that he's leaving home because she never feeds him properly by putting meat on the table, and the other is a song about cabbage. This is considered by all musical scholars to be a fine example of Bach's sense of humor. Needless to say, the piece itself is a musical gem.

I've found that the words of the Last Gospel fit perfectly to the first melody, and that the second melody could easily be sung with "Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine", from the Creed, and which mean God from God, Light from Light. This would be a fitting climax to the Variations. Closure doesn't get any better than this.

But, actually it does. Here is what I noticed, last night, when I showed Mike my old missal. You have to remember that Bach was a devout Christian, with very strong beliefs. I had forgotten all about the way the old Mass ended, but it all came back when I happened to look at the page just above the beginning of the Last Gospel.

The priest used to stand at the alter with his back to the congregation, and after making sure the alter and chalices were properly cleaned and arranged, he would shift over to the left hand side of the alter, and give a blessing. Then he would say the following: "Initium sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem" which means The beginning of the Holy Gospel according to John - Johann, to you and me.

The Last Gospel starts with "In the beginning was the Word", and continues with a brief but comprehensive listing of the fundamentals of Christian belief. I woke up at 5am this morning, remembering that just a few sentences into it comes the point - et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt - And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not.

I don't know if I ever showed you an old Currier and Ives print that I used up here while teaching chess to kids. It shows a fox looking into a forest, with lots of details. I used it to make the point that a chess position contains much more than what we see at first glance. Hidden in the picture were a great big horse staring out at you, a wild boar, a sheep, and lots of human faces.

Well, I hear some movement upstairs. Rosemary must be getting ready to come down for breakfast. Talk to you later.

Ed

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