As if all notes were contained in any single note
The first three notes -- the root, the fifth, and the minor third -- seemed entirely magical. In their simplicity he heard the implication of the whole piece itself, and from that, from his awareness of the fugue, came an awareness of all-of-music, as if all notes were contained in any single note. The perception was evanescent, but so powerful as to wipe away thoughts of himself. Music is here! Music has been here forever and always will be here! It was so much larger than life, so ineluctable strong, so potent an indicator of a kind of heaven on earth, that all else was swept before it. He saw this in a flash. In a nanosecond.