Daisy’s Reviews > Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach > Status Update
Daisy
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There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. In the course of a single second, our senses of sight, of hearing, of smell, register (knowingly or not) a swarm of events and a parade of sensations and ideas passes through our head.
— Oct 13, 2026 03:42PM
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Daisy’s Previous Updates
Daisy
is on page 109 of 629
The moment that fascination with exploring the emotional reactions of the participants was allowed to dominate, the search for purely musical ways to convey the action was lost. A notable strength of Monteverdi and Cavalli (but one not shared by many of the next generation of composers) was to allow this affective reaction to fuse with and become the action,
— Oct 21, 2026 05:50PM
Daisy
is starting
Suppose instead we start to view him ( Bach) as an unlikely rebel: ‘someone who undermined widely acclaimed principles and closely guarded assumptions [about music]’.
— Oct 11, 2026 07:55PM
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Man, makes me want to pick this up right now! Or something musical at least! I have this on audible so I could start listening to it at work but from your excerpt, it might take up a little too much RAM in my noggin to be combined with working with and around dangerous tools 😁 Hit me with a couple of your latest faves!
I love this quote too haha, but yeah this book isn’t ideal for listening , which is what I am doing , though I also have the book at hand so I can read the parts that need a bit more time to digest. Yesterday I was listening to the chapter on the historical context and there was so much information that I was like …there is no way i can listen to this and retain anything. So I …skipped that chapter 🫣😅( I do intend to go back to it! If I am reaallllly honest, I was also getting impatient because I wanted to get to the parts that directly had to do with music !)
Your current Shakespeare project is super exciting and I have been following with great interest, but I get the urge to want to squeeze in some music related stuff . I have another learning project for the fall/ winter months but I just feel I just have to also do something music related hehe.
I have been listening to our old friend Andras’ recording of the Bach solo keyboard works daily recently and I am just obsessed with those sinfonia at the moment. I am also listening to Perahia’s keyboard concerti, I am liking his approach a lot ( btw I adore his recording of Mozart concerti ). I want to get more into his vocal works though !
If I am reaallllly honest, I was also getting impatient because I wanted to get to the parts that directly had to do with music!I get this, completely! 😄 I feel, in light of this, Wolff might not be a huge hit with you. Only one way to find out I guess.
Love the Sinfonia and the two-part inventions as well. If I could play a couple of the Two-Part Inventions as a LONG term goal (particularly long-term as Shakespeare has me away from the keyboard completely atm), I'd be content!
I have listened to Perahia's concerti but never the sonatas. I have listened, most often to Uchida but my current favourite is Maria Joao Pires.
Pray tell, what's your upcoming learning project?
What an absolutely magnificent quote! Thanks for sharing!
Glad you liked this quote too, Jerone☺️ I was listening to this book on transit and this bit took my breath away ! I had to pause and take out the book from my bag to read it again 😁
Oh I love Maria Joao Pires’ sonatas! I have only listened to a recording of Uchida playing Mozart concerto 13 but it is a recording from when she was much younger and it felt too…pretty? I should listen to some of her recordings when her style has matured more!regarding Wollf, currently I am just so eager to learn more about the music itself ( because I want to systematically listen/ learn) , it might just be perfect for when I feel that I have learned more about the music itself .
About the project…So I got this 500+ pp book by chance when I was travelling last month, it’s in French and on a topic that I have been obsessed with : aesthetics. So I thought it might be a sign that I should start to try to read in French and learn this way.( I sort of studied the language on my own in college but haven’t used it in like more than 10 years ) It is not easy at all, but with my stubbornness, I might just be able to finish it. I can only read about 5 pages a day right now, but that’s ok haha.
Maybe you are just like me, enjoy having a project going? Hehe 🤓
The miracle of music is that it allows us to step aside momentarily from Kundera’s temporal evanescence. A musical work such as a Bach cantata is manifestly a journey from a beginning, through a middle, and to an end, and yet at that end the light it casts in the memory on all that has gone before creates the feeling that we are constantly in a state of arrival – leading to a sense of being aware of, and thus valuing, our own consciousness, both now and in what went before.