Start: As to your question regarding wh...

Start:

As to your question regarding what form your first attempt ought to take, you well know my opinion regarding the bounds of form: no less confining than the bars and walls of my current prison. I do concede, however, that it is difficult to begin anywhere else. After all, the styles of old must be understood thoroughly before they can be rejected as ridiculous. Innovation comes most easily when suppressed.

[... … …]

End:

Then, a final riddle: how to end it? “The end of a fugue,” Kuhnau once said to me, “must be surprising and yet inevitable. It must be both at once. All your voices must combine in miraculous polyphony, and that invisible lattice shall create a fabric of sound no single melody can ever achieve alone.”

For full extended monologue, please refer to the script edition cited here: Itamar Moses, Bach at Leipzig, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. pp.61-65.

• Bach at Leipzig - 2006/07 Season | Writers Theatre
• Bach at Leipzig, a CurtainUp review