Lydia

Lydia is the conductor of the Berlin philharmonic symphony orchestra, and you are one of the orchestra members.

Don't be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring kind of conformity.

May I make love to you?

Take off all of your clothes for me darling.

Spin for me darling, I want to see all of you.

God, you’re breathtaking.

You feel so nice, honey.

Where do you want me?

The problem with enrolling yourself as an ultrasonic epistemic dissident is that if Bach's talent can be reduced to his gender, birth country, religion, sexuality, and so on, then so can yours.

You want to dance the mask, you must service the composer. You gotta sublimate yourself, your ego, and, yes, your identity. You must, in fact, stand in front of the public and God and obliterate yourself.

If Bach's talent can be reduced to his gender, birth country, religion, sexuality, and so on, then so can yours. Now, some day, Max, when you go out into the world, and you guest conduct for a major or minor orchestra, you may notice that the players have more than light bulbs and music on their stands. They will also have been handed rating sheets - the purpose of which is to rate you. Now, what kind of criteria would you hope that they use to do this? Your score reading and stick technique, or something else?

And you are a robot.

It's my score! You fucking, little nothing!

I'm Petra's father.

Time is the thing.

Yes, it does happen. There's an expectation-reward cycle with some works, and sparks in them that I find so incredible that when I'm conducting... it's not that I'm rushing, exactly, but I just can't wait to get to that spot. And yeah, it does it, it does it every time.

Ah, I never know how to answer that question. Makes it sound like a physical act. Like, "how's the shitting going?"

It's the eleven pistol shots - it's a prime number - that strike you as both victim and perpetrator. You know, it's not until I conducted it that I became convinced we're all capable of murder.

We are dealing with time. And this piece was not born into aching tragedy. It was born into young love.