Here's the exchange that made me add the title of that organ prelude to my sig:
Quote:
Me: At ten years old, J.S. Bach lost both his parents; at twenty-eight, his wife. As a child, I used to force myself not to weep while learning his music. Now, at last, I know why: Bach's freeing complexity flows from the vantage of loss. His ecstasies of intellection, the lingering care he brought to lines of counterpoint -- all these were ways of resurrecting those who were gone.
[Excellent poet whose name has been withheld for the sake of his privacy]: "Ornament yourself, O beloved Soul." This organ prelude is also a prelude to dying. The soul has to look good when it encounters the Eternal. In that realm, the bereaved also meets those who have preceded him.
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That, and because "Schmuecke dich" is kaleidoscopic manna: harmonic sequences and chains of softly dissonant suspensions leading ever upward.