ABSTRACT
Johann Sebaslian Bach, in particular Bach’s Little Fugue, was almost John F. Nash’s signature, his calling-card; it is the thing that most people remember about him, according to the biography and most other accounts of his life, providing the point either of sympathy or annoyance in his relations with others. In the quadrangle, Nash rode a bicycle in figure-eight, over and over, and paced the hallways obsessively whistling Bach’s Little Fugue”. Bach’s Little Fugue in G Minor is more than just a simple refrain, as recognisable as it is to lovers of classical music. It has a characteristically precise and mathematical structure in which initially two and then four “voices” or tunes are counterpointed. Bach’s Little Fugue has a precipitous momentum, starting relatively simply and sedately and then increasing its tempo, voices imitating and cutting across and undercutting each other.
