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This [chaotic environment,] I felt, was only possible because all these types of order were partial, mere fragments that had split off from a central order; they might not have lost their creative force, but they were no longer directed toward a unifying center. Its absence was brought home to me with increasingly painful intensity the longer I listened. I was suffering almost physically, but I was quite unable to find a way towards the center through the thicket of conflicting opinions. ...There was a hush as, high above us, [a young violinist] struck up the first great D minor chord of Bach’s Chaconne. All at once, and with utter certainty, I had found my link with the center….The clear phrases of the Chaconne touched me like a cool wind, breaking through the mist and revealing the towering structures beyond. There has always been a path to the central order in the language of music, in philosophy and in religion, today no less than in Plato’s day and in Bach’s. That I now knew from my own experience.
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