What would my life have been without Varese? For in my most secret and devious self I am an imitator. It is not his music, his "style" that I imitate; it is his stance, his way of living in the world. And so, periodically, I would go to the concert hall to hear one of his compositions, or telephone to make an appointment to see him, feeling not unlike those who make a pilgrimage to Lourdes hoping for a cure.

Instead of inventing a system like Schoenberg, Varese invented a music that speaks to us with its incredible tenacity rather than its methodology. When listening to Varese, we ask ourselves, "How did he do it?" and not "How was it done?"

Suddenly, toward the end of his life, Kierkegaard began to worry what his answer might be if he were asked in Heaven: "Did you make things clear?" He realized that in order to make things clear, he must make it known that of all those serving the Church of Denmark, not one had any feeling for God.

And ourselves? What if we were faced with the same question? Being that music is our life, in that it has given us a life - did we make things clear? That is, do we love Music, and not the systems, the rituals, the symbols - the worldly, greedy gymnastics we substitute for it? That is, do we give everything - a total commitment to our own uniqueness?

Have we no examples of this? Is this not Varese? Do we only have models for scale tinkering and instrument clinking? Do we think Varese is now something to dissect? Are we making ready the test tubes? Remember, there was no funeral. He escaped.