,4
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It now goes under the name "Johant Sebastiant's Well-Tested Conjec-
ture".
Achilles: Shouldn't it be called a "Theorem" rather than a "Conjecture", if
it's finally been given a proper proof?
Anteater: Strictly speaking, you're right, but tradition has kept it this way.
Tortoise: What sort of music did Sebastiant do?
Anteater: He had great gifts for composition. Unfortunately, his greatest
work is shrouded in mystery, for he never reached the point of pub-
lishing it. Some believe that he had it all in his mind; others are more
unkind, saying that he probably never worked it out at all, but merely
blustered about it.
Achilles: What was the nature of this magnum opus?
Anteater: It was to be a giant prelude and fugue; the fugue was to have
twenty-four voices, and to involve twenty-four distinct subjects, one in
each of the major and minor keys.
Achilles: It would certainly be hard to listen to a twenty-four-voice fugue
as a whole!
Crab: Not to mention composing one!
Anteater: But all that we know of it is Sebastiant's description of it, which
he wrote in the margin of his copy of Buxtehude's Preludes and
Fugues for Organ. The last words which he wrote before his tragic
demise were:
I have composed a truly marvelous fugue. In it, I have added
together the power of 24 keys, and the power of 24 themes; I came
up with a fugue with the power of 24 voices. Unfortunately, this
margin is too narrow to contain it.
And the unrealized masterpiece simply goes by the name, "Fermant's
Last Fugue".
Achilles: Oh, that is unbearably tragic.
Tortoise: Speaking of fugues, this fugue which we have been listening to is
nearly over. Towards the end, there occurs a strange new twist on its
theme. (Flips the page in the Well-Tempered Clavier.) Well, what have
we here? A new illustration-how appealing! (Shows it to the Crab.)FIGURE 64. [Drawing by the author.], , ..
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