Music, Math and the Wonders of Music...

Arguably, Bach is generally thought of as the most influential composer of the last three hundred years. The magic of sound and numbers, in unparalleled symbiosis, which this titanic musical thinker has given life to, has filtered into virtually all composers' thought processes since his time.
Those of us in the field think of Bach and his powers almost daily, as his language permeates our consciousness in countless incarnations whenever the process of music writing becomes the issue of the moment.
And yet, when I study the harmonic vocabulary of a Chopin or a Schumann as I venture into the historical placement of this art form when it represents the Romantic period, I am staggered each and every time at the incredible level of mathematics, especially as it applies to the height of spontaneity that a Chopin or a Schumann can impart to us when they deal with the issue of projecting the cause of human emotion and its voluminous vocabulary.
It is, quite simply, a coruscation of the highest order to digest and recognize what the two words "great composer" imply, no matter what period, after Bach's time, we are involved with.