Separated by Centuries

Each week I look forward to having my Sunday breakfast with Peter Tibbles. Peter writes the weekly "Elder Music" column on Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By.

This morning's music column featured the clarinet, which, with all due respect to my two daughters, who both attempted to master the clarinet in elementary school, is not my favorite instrument. I'm more of a piano and guitar kind of person. Still, I listened to a few bars of each piece, and some of it was really nice. But that's not why I'm writing about it here.

What grabbed me about this morning's column was the portrait of Johann Christian Bach. I had to do a double-take. You guys, there was a composer running around in the mid-1700s who had Chris Noth's eyes! Look at this:

I'd know those eyes anywhere, and the resemblance doesn't even stop there. Granted, Johann Christian was fleshier in the jowls, but their chins are quite similar, and both of them have that scruffy-upper-lip thing going on. Their foreheads look alike, too, although Chris Noth's widow's peak is more pronounced.

Imagine a musician of the Classical Era flashing a Chris-Noth-like smile during a performance. Don't you just know those straitlaced ladies in their ornate dresses and fancy hats perched on top of elaborate wigs would have been working their lace-edged fans?