.

rrh'isOIV  ... a wasp just buzzed in through the Velux & went scrabbling across the desk & keyboard ... now up & off into the blue above my head. 

This morning's enthusiasm: Beatrice Rana's recording of the Goldberg Variations. You grow up being told the significance of this work, you go out & buy the first & then second Glenn Gould records. You listen & admire. You then begin to explore other versions - the Igor Levit, for example - & they confirm that GG was not the final word. & then you sit down & listen to Beatrice Rana's interpretation & you find admiration turning into something else - sheer delight. Honestly, I have never heard these variations played with such emotional delicacy (yes, that's the phrase). Beautiful.

Suffice to say, I went on line & downloaded the score for the first variation & then sat at the piano. Painfully I plonked my way through. Who cares? The house is empty. I have no audience. My woeful inadequacy aside, what I hear through my fingers is a distant & deformed echo of Rana's playing & Bach's composition - but the thrill at bar 11 touching that left hand E & the right hand arpeggio of G-B-E-G. 

(& it's just occurred to me: G-o-l-d-B-E-r-G). 

Utter joy.