Two or three times during my wanderings through the streets I had heard the strains of an organ coming from a little church in the suburbs, without, however, stopping to listen. The next time I passed by the church I heard it again, and recognized that Bach was being played. I went to the door, which I found to be locked. As the street was practically empty I sat down on a curbstone close to the church, turned up the collar of my coat and listened. It was not a large organ, but a good one nevertheless. Whoever was playing played wonderfully well, almost like a virtuoso, but with a peculiar, highly personal expression of will and perseverance, which seemed to make the music ring out like a prayer. I had the feeling that the man who was playing knew a treasure was shut up in the music and he struggled and tapped and knocked to get at the treasure, as if his life depended on his finding it. In the technical sense I do not understand very much about music, but this form of the soul’s expression I have from my childhood intuitively understood; I feel music is something which I can comprehend without initiation.
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