Bach’s always been one of my favourite composers. When I stumbled across a two-volume work on Bach by Schweitzer, I couldn’t resist. In the Second Volume, Schweitzer offered some good comments on the role of various arts in the artist.

Every artistic idea is complex in quality until the moment when it finds definite expression. Neither in painting, nor in music, nor in poetry is there such a thing as an absolute art that can be regarded as the norm, enabling us to brand all others as false, for in every artist there dwells another, who wishes to have his own say in the matter, the difference being that in one his activity is obtrusive, and in another hardly noticeable. Herein resides the whole distinction. Art in itself is neither painting nor poetry nor music, but an act of creation in which all three coöperate.