A poem from 1996 by the Swedish writer Jesper Svenbro

Fugue in C major

Why was Buxtehude played so often

at church concerts in the nineteen fifties?

That at least was the case in Skåne;

and the reason was probably that his organ compositions

had been published in the early part of the decade

by Josef Hedar from Lund.

For us who were young then it was of course difficult

to appreciate the change

that this must have brought about:

for it was as if his music had been played

since the beginning of Eternity.

But somewhere I felt the importance of the moment

when the organist without pedals

let the fugue in C major take to the air!

I wanted to learn how to play.

The church hovered between heaven and earth.

It could have been the Mariakyrka in Helsingborg

where Diderik Buxtehude, twenty years of age,

once gained his first position.

Buxtehude in Helsingborg ...

It is so light in the space around the church just now:

the trees are still bare,

father stands there in his vestments in the spring breeze

conversing with an extremely white-haired Josef Hedar.

And the church door is ajar.

What is it they are talking about?

They stand in the echo of the fugue

that seems never to want to die away

and do not notice that the composer himself

has recently hurried past

and already has got so far out to sea

that he cannot be seen for all the light.