Awarding of the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig

Photo: Josep Molina

When did your special relationship with Bach begin?

I remember getting an LP of the Christmas Oratorio when I was seven, shortly after I began learning to play the piano. That opening – the resounding timpani, the rejoicing violins; a downpouring of stars, a real fireworks display with fallout in the shape of notes. It just blew me away, and it still does. I was totally dumbfounded that music could have such splendour. To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed when I learned at some point that Bach had originally composed this incredible music for quite a different text.

What fascinates you most about Bach?

I’d cite two musicians here. In his famous address at the 1950 Hamburg Bach Festival, Paul Hindemith said that Bach’s music is a »vision of the ultimate limit of humanly possible perfection«. And Mauricio Kagel put it this way: »Not all musicians believe in God, but they all believe in Johann Sebastian Bach!«. I wholly agree with both. The degree of perfection and the wealth of evocations in Bach’s work are unparalleled and I always wonder, how did he always manage to hold the sophisticated musical texture of his compositions together intellectually, concentration-wise – not just in the incredibly complex late works like the »Art of Fugue«, but even in pieces where he didn’t chew the end of his pencil for long, so to speak?

Is there one Bach work that won’t let you go, or that you find particularly fascinating?

(Laughs) Not just one ... but let’s take one example characteristic of Bach’s infinite richness: the opening chorus of the cantata »Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild« (»God the Lord is sun and shield«), BWV 79. The festive concertato beginning, then the nimble battaglia and finally the entrance of the choir with the long notes – a whole universe of themes and tempos. During the course of the piece, Bach firstly combines any two elements together and finally all three – quite effortlessly, no sweat. There you have the quintessence of what this Bach was capable of, which he demonstrates again and again. Superb!