For the troops stationed there life was not tragic or even dangerous, natural hazards apart, for the Japanese had been expelled from the westernmost islands some months earlier; but it was miserable. Marooned on empty rocks, they found in the remoteness, dampness, boredom, new levels and subtleties of feeling, and music had space to spread itself in their minds; and particularly in hospital. The man in hospital who has strength to think and feel at all feels unaccustomed emotions waken in his heart. In this tender, passive, softened mood, the most unexpected people are sensitive to the most unexpected music. In one hospital on the Aleutians where half the piano keys were found to be frozen solid, the young conscripts responded wholeheartedly to a programme of unaccompanied Bach: the Praeludium and Gavotte from the E Major Solo Partita, the entire G Minor Sonata, and finally the Chaconne. Probably most of them had never heard of Bach. << less