“There’s so little of the Maker in our creations,” Alexander Eidinov, my friend and coworker, said one day, driving with difficulty his rather blunt carving knife into the soft body of the wooden blank. Disagreement erupted within me, which I silently suppressed and asked him the creations of which poets or which of their works he recognizes as blessed by the Lord and which of them he believes are brought about by man and created by his desires. Sasha used to write poetry, I applied myself to music, which is why I asked him a question about poetic creativity, the subject he was well versed in. As it happened, our talk took a full 8 hour working day. In it, we recalled the Mandelshtam “croons” mentioned by his wife Nadezhda Yakovlevna, quoted, as very telling, The Prophet by Pushkin, which one can’t read without being enthralled, and which undeniably proves that a poet is ultimately the Lord’s servant, not a mere verse maker.
We also mentioned other classics, including those in music. Sasha pointed out Pushkin’s drafts as constituents of his hard work and I agreed that Pushkin had really put in a good quota of strenuous effort. But I insisted that the incentives for any creative endeavor come from the Almighty God (leaving out without discussion the human motives), sometimes emerging as whole verses or poetical ideas containing some fragments of stanzas, which subsequently, with a passage of time and following some work, may result in new verses that assume a final form of an accomplished piece of art.That’s how poetic works come into being.In our talk I applied the same pattern to music, trying to show that real music comes by itself, without production, or, which seems to be still more scandalous, without instruction by tutors with all their expertise. However, this does not reject the need for education and the knowledge of the predecessors’ poetry.Eventually, I took up the works of Jan Sweelinck as a man of learning with a clear-cut thinking pattern determined by his upbringing and music education. I said that I’d started hearing such things in all the authors of all times and trends, and that it smacks of a certain technology and resembles an organ-grinder’s tune.
Also, I told Sasha about the nagging feeling I had of something being disturbingly unsaid and restricted in the type of art, so weakly associated with earth, such as music. I pointed out the lack of  a real depth even in the best works of really talented composers. I mean the depth that is missing in stories about some object, the depth that becomes obvious in a personal encounter and in learning the object itself. (At that time I didn’t realize that no cultural life can gratify the longing for the Absolute. But back then, the Absolute itself was not an animate object for me or, better put, a personalized category).
“Well, this is something exclusively yours. Most people are quite content and even happy with the so-called encounter with the beautiful. Moreover, on hearing this
beauty in their childhood or adolescence, they continue to listen to it till their dying days and never get bored with it.”
“Yes, this is a stunning thing. How long can we dawdle over it?”
I noted with dismay.
“So you see! I’m right, eh?” Sasha exclaimed.
“You are, but partially,” I replied.   
I haven’t seen Sweelinck’s drafts. Nor have I read the treatise The Composing Guidelines ascribed to him, and written down by his pupils drawing on their remembrances. However, he is known as a fine teacher, which implies schooling and an associated system. The system, I believe, is like a well-adjusted mechanism and the one who creates or uses it becomes himself a mechanism or a function. This is inevitable on the way from culture to civilization, entailing the growing heartlessness, narrow specialization and a measure of engineering in art, all of which finally frees from these encumbrances and leads to an unavoidable end. Sweelinck was called Master Jan from Amsterdam. By calling a man the master we imply his mastery of some trade or work, i.e. creative activity. Judging by the article about Sweelinck, he developed church choir forms, rendering them into works for organ and performing them at concerts in the cathedral. Of course, he was not the only composer who did this, but he was a recognized master, many of whose works for the choir were published in his lifetime. What is evident and matters much more to me is that Sweelinck served God and asked Him for strength and help in work and life. I clearly see that he did get that help and engaged in creation not for fame but in the name of the Lord. That is why his works have lived to this day; they are in demand, attract and are performed. It will always be so, as long as the generations on earth produce, in the Divine Will, susceptible people who are able to hear the Lord and answer His calls. Even though there is little of God in our creative endeavors, it is infallibly there, prompting them, giving life, be it even with the aid of templates and established technologies. Otherwise everything would look miserable and lifeless. As the fertile black earth becomes, without humus, dead sand, so all our life and creations become poorer without God’s inspiration, dry up and eventually disappear.
Given the above, I offer as my sole and modest organ piece produced exclusively from the first sixteen bars, which reverberated in my head for six months before forcing me to put it down on paper. I was getting back t o this work time and again until it has assumed the form in which, if you care, you can hear it. I wish to warn you directly that this fantasia is not a masterpiece.
But it aptly illustrates what I’ve written here. I also wish to thank Maria Makarenko, a remarkably gifted organ player, who has animated with her performance this rather boring piece and Alexander Volkov,    a sound producer, who, like Maria, has done an excellent job.
And now, friends, let’s drop this rigmarole and get down to real business, i.e. taking selfies and collecting likes. Those who were patient enough to have read all this and still remain on the stuff,         are recommended to go up the page, click the Fantasia for Organ in A minor and listen to the music.

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