B Minor Mass

My friends at Haverford introduced me to older classical music.   Also to the choral music of Bach, the Masses and Cantatas.   I particularly like Christ Lag in Todesbanden (#4.)  One of my room mates, Tony Rosner also introduced me to the joy (even for Jewish guys) of attending a midnight mass Christmas eve at one of the big Catholic or Episcopal churches in NYC.   We did it together several years.

One of these Christmas eve nights I was driving the old blue/gray 1948 Plymouth along NJ highways to meet Tony for midnight mass.   B Minor Mass was on the radio.   It filled the car.   The music is so rich.   Even the interludes are heavenly.   I wouldn't make a deal with the devil for much, but to compose like Bach.....   Anyway I was driving along in a cold fog and rain.   The roads were pretty lonely.   I had this sudden vision of something happening to the car and we turn over.   I die in the accident;   the wheels of the car continue to spin;   out the windows surges the continuing music of the B Minor Mass.   It seemed a beautiful way to go....and a powerful vision that still comes to me from time to time.   There was no suicidal impulse here, it just seemed like the B Minor Mass was....enough.