It is Finished

21 months ago, I purchased the complete works of Bach. 155 CDs. Yesterday I finished Disk #155.

I'm a little depressed.

Listening through Bach was like reading the entire Bible for the first time, with new discoveries on every page (or track, as the case may be). Bach repeatedly astounded me with his mastery, his variety, his profundity, his energy, his joy. The world was not worthy of him, but we are the richer because he lived.

Toward the end of this collection, I became acutely aware that the joy of discovery was soon to be over. Often, I found myself hitting the "Replay" button, wanting to get every last bit out of the last few disks.As Dingeman van Wijnen put it in the liner notes for one of the CDs, speaking of one cantata's amazing closing chorale:

It is one of those moments in Bach where the first hearing brings us the sad certainty that we will never again be able to hear it for the first time.

Never again for the first time. But a lifetime's worth of depths to plumb.

So what's next? Start over? Move on to the complete works of Mozart (whom I mostly hate, 170 CDs) or Beethoven (85 CDs)? While I mull this over, I think I'll revisit some of my older CDs that got neglected during the Bachfest. Perhaps I'll start with Jacques Loussier, who does cool jazz versions of, ahem, Bach compositions. . .

Beethoven Wasn't Aborted . . . But Rostropovich Almost Was

Who?

Mstislav Rostropovich.

Who???

Well, OK, he's not exactly a household name - in most households, anyway - but in classical music circles he was pretty well known. Rostropovich was a Russian, born in Azerbaijan, who became the best-known living cellist and was also director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. He died on April 27, age 80.

Sometimes in the abortion debate, the pro-lifers will say something like, "What if Beethoven had been aborted? We would never have had his music!" Which is true, but I've never used the argument, myself; I'm not quite prepared to say that aborting a Beethoven is worse than aborting a sheet metal worker or even a used car salesman. Our worth derives from our fact of existence, not from our utility.

Nevertheless, it was interesting to me to read a reminiscence in the Wall Street Journal that was published shortly after Rostropovich's death [May 5 issue, available online only to subscribers]. The author recounted an interview he once had with the muscian, in which he discussed the circumstances of the latter's birth:

In a 2002 interview in New York, he told me in his idiosyncratic, richly accented English that his mother, a peripatetic pianist and conservatory professor, had tried to abort him because she felt that a second child would be too great a burden. "Like confession," Rostropovich said, "my mother tell me one day, 'Excuse me, my son, but I'm sorry.' She asked very famous gynecology professor not for operation, but something liquid to get rid of me from inside. But I stay in there!"

In fact Rostropovich's mother carried him for 10 months, and years later he used to joke with her, "Mother, you had me for extra month. Why not make for me a beautiful face?" And Mother always smile and say, 'My son, I was too busy making you beautiful hands!'"

I guess she was glad the potion didn't work.