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As I went through some old recordings, I found that these two make a nice pair. Arranging nice little transitions like this is one of my favorite parts of doing a concert. It\u2019s the same little pleasure as assembling a mix CD or playing DJ: even the simple act of ordering songs is a kind of composition, and carries the joy of being creative.

The keys of the two pieces (E flat and A flat) are related and make for a smooth transition, but beyond that, it\u2019s hard to pin down what exactly connects them so well. The deliberate, thoughtful way both unfold? The way both of them seem to talk? Their sense of intimacy? Those are all getting warm, but none of them really pin it down. It doesn\u2019t matter, though \u2014\xa0it is fine to be musically confident on intuition alone, and I say they fit. Phooey to the 20th century and its obsession with having a conscious rationale for everything in music!

When something musical works well, it\u2019s natural to wonder why, and we learn a great deal in the process of trying to come up with explanations. But our musical explanations (like all models of reality) are always incomplete; good music remains half-submerged in the unknown, and thus always carries the magic shared by all mysterious things. This is the dilemma of a performer and, even more, of a composer: constantly dissecting, looking for order, developing explanations and rationales \u2014 and at the same time never losing sight of the incompleteness of these explanations, but embracing the unknown and holding on to the magic. The skill of smoothly changing frame between reasoning and intuition, known and unknown, dissected part and organic whole, is a core part of both composition and computer programming. Those are two things I spent a lot of my time doing, and I claim they overlap a great deal in the brain, in large part because of this \u201cframe shifting.\u201d

Oh, right, I had a recording to share. Enough philosophizing. On with the music!

\n\n\n\n\n\nJohann Sebastian Bach\n\n\n\n\u25b6\ufe0f\nSinfonia No 5\n\n\nPaul Cantrell, piano\n\n\n\n\n\n\u2b07\ufe0f\nDownload\n\n\n(3:58 / 5.0 M)\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\nRobert Schumann\n\n\n\n\u25b6\ufe0f\nBunte Bl\xe4tter No 6\n\n\nPaul Cantrell, piano\n\n\n\n\n\n\u2b07\ufe0f\nDownload\n\n\n(2:06 / 2.9 M)\n\n\n\n

These both come from wonderful sets of pieces \u2014 Bach\u2019s two- and three-part inventions, and Schumann\u2019s Albumbl\xe4tter (\u201cAlbum Leaves,\u201d which is a subset of Bunte Bl\xe4tter, \u201cColored Leaves\u201d). I\u2019d like to learn more of both sets (and improve my Bach playing in general, because it\u2019s very weak). Too much great music and not enough time! What\u2019s a fellow to do?