Bach-analia

It was Bach as Bach intended when Mr. and Mrs. Osborn Elliott, Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler G. Chapin, and the Creo Society celebrated Johann Sebastian's tercentenary in the Elliotts' Gracie Square living room in New York. Harpsichordist Judith Norell zipped dazzlingly through the Goldberg Variations for seated and sprawling guests: Peter Duchin (following his own score), Brooke Hayward, Marietta Tree, Mr. and Mrs. James Hoge, Judge Pierre Leval (liberated by the white flag in the Westmoreland trial), Mr. and Mrs. Richard Clurman, Columbia dean Benno Schmidt and his wife, Helen Whitney, and others. Blinis were served with batik napkins from the collection designed by Inger McCabe Elliott for China Seas, Inc. Out of earshot of the Bach-Gesellschaft, playwright Peter Shaffer was careful to respond discreetly to questions about that other composer—the one who wrote the sound track for Amadeus.