Alard plays Bach

Photo: Bernard Martinez

Mon, 16 June / 5.00 pm / Alte Börse / No 90
Wed 18 June / 10.30 pm / Bach-Museum, Sommersaal / No 124

You are the first musician to set about recording the complete keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach. What drove you to undertake this marathon project?

The main objective of my project is to make Bach’s keyboard music as clear and comprehensible as possible. At the same time, I’m trying to shake off convention with my choice of keyboard instrument and actual performance practice. I don’t only want to play this music as well as possible, I want to play it as if I was discovering it for the first time. To be as true to myself and my perception of this music as possible, I’m forcing myself to forget all previous interpretations

The volume of Bach’s keyboard works is huge, almost incalculably so. Have you developed any particular preference for individual groups of works or even individual compositions over the past few years?

Oddly enough, it’s Bach’s wonderful youthful works that move me most. In them, Bach takes not the slightest notice of any contemporary judgements and even less those of posterity, he’s entirely self-sufficient.

You’ll be performing one of your Leipzig concerts on a pedal clavichord. What are the advantages of this now almost forgotten instrument?

As a general rule, the clavichord is a keyboard instrument of immediate, direct expression, with no manipulation of the sound. It’s the only keyboard instrument that gives the player genuine contact with the strings – it’s not for nothing that Bach prized it so highly! We often forget that, apart from very small instruments, it was not as easy to play the organ back then, as it always required the presence of bellows treaders to supply the air. The pedal clavichord was a great alternative for the home. Its sound lends a wonderful, intimate dimension to the great organ works with a pedal part.