Listening to Bach isn’t so different from prayer. They are both human attempts to impose an artificial order upon an inherently chaotic world. 

Why do I so respect Glenn Gould? Because his playing is willful, extreme, eccentric. Because it’s utterly engaged.

Yom Kippur is when we Jews face up to the way we lead our lives. The cantor uses the liturgy to break open our hearts and try to pry open God’s. But if there were going to be a secular soundtrack, it would have to be Bach’s Cello Suites.

My personal journey from “Petula Clark sings Robert Johnson” to J.S. Bach to Dmitri Shostakovich.
Searching? Bad Navigation? Simple twist of fate?