“Have you listened to The Idea of North all the way through?”

“I tried,” the second one said. “I kept waiting for the music to start.”

“That is the music.”

“It’s people talking on top of each other.”

“It’s counterpoint,” the first said. “Voices instead of notes. Same principle.”

The second fan shook his head. “Bach has structure. This sounds like a crowded kitchen.”

“Exactly. And somehow he organizes it. You start to hear patterns. One voice rises, another drops out. It’s composed.”

“Composed chaos,” the second said. “I don’t know if that qualifies as music or just clever editing.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The intention, maybe. Music feels shaped. This feels… accidental.”

“It isn’t accidental,” the first said. “Gould was obsessive. He placed those voices the way he would place a fugue subject.”

The second fan leaned back. “But there’s no melody.”

“There’s no instrumental melody. The voices are the melody.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Is it? Think of it this way. If you didn’t understand English, you’d hear it as pure sound. Rhythm, texture, tone.”

The second fan paused. “So you’re saying meaning gets in the way?”

“I’m saying meaning is one layer. Sound is another.”

“Still,” the second said, “when I listen to Gould play Bach, I feel something immediate. With The Idea of North, I feel like I’m doing homework.”

“That might be the point,” the first said. “He wasn’t trying to comfort you. He was trying to redefine what listening is.”

“Or he was bored of the piano and decided to mess with people.”

The first fan smiled. “He was always messing with people. Even when he played Bach.”

“So is it music?”

“I think it is,” the first said. “Just not the kind you hum afterward.”

The second fan considered this. “Maybe it’s closer to radio than music.”

“Or maybe radio is closer to music than we thought.”

The second fan laughed. “That sounds like something Gould would say.”

“It probably is,” the first replied.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I’ll give him this,” the second said finally. “It makes you listen differently.”

“That’s all he ever wanted,” the first said.