In a recent interview with Fred Child on Performance Today, legendary pianist Andras Schiff spoke eloquently about his life-long journey with Bach and his most recent recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier…after hearing a small excerpt in my car, I quickly searched for the complete interview on my computer…with each listen, I discover something new and inspiring…so much so, I just had to share the link with you, along with some of my favorite moments…may you be enlightened by Schiff’s brilliant insights and by the sheer beauty and genius of Bach
To learn more about Andras Schiff and The Bach Project, click here…to hear the complete interview on Performance Today, click here
Introduction by Fred Child ~ ” In 1986 and 87, when he was in his early 30’s, pianist Andras Schiff made recordings of the collection of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier…it’s actually two collections of Preludes and Fugues in every possible key, Major and minor…Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier has been tremendously influential both in the science and in the art of music, exploring the sound and the feeling of every key as never before, showing that a single instrument could even do such a thing and doing it with unmatched inventiveness and touching beauty as well…now 25 years after his first recordings of these works, Andras Schiff has again recorded the complete Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach as part of a massive undertaking he’s calling his Bach Project in 2012 and 2013.”
Fred Child ~ “Why come back to the Well-Tempered Clavier 25 years after those first recordings?”
Andras Schiff ~ “I never left the Well-Tempered Clavier…and every day of my life, I start with playing Bach, usually a couple of preludes and fugues from this collection, for about an hour…many of my friends and I myself notice that I’m playing these pieces, somehow not drastically different from 25 years ago, but it’s not the same thing, you see a wider horizon there…so it’s a work in progress and with the passing of 25 years I noticed that I arrived at the next station…and hopefully there will be many more because as long as I live, and I’m lucky to be in good health, I want to continue to explore the mysteries of this music.”
“I developed the theory about colors basically to explain the unexplainable to myself…(it’s) to say that music is not just a sequence of notes and symbols, it’s not that abstract…and colors do help here because how do you define C Major? c minor? d minor? D Major? I thought that this would be very nice to describe this with colors…that when I start on the white keys with C Major, then we are white…not just because of the white keys, but there are no accidentals, and to me this is pure innocence.” ~ AS
“For me, I am still in the middle of my journey…there is no way to get to the end of this, it’s too great and it’s too complex…there are an incredible number of layers here that you have to discover, you can go deeper and deeper and it’s very profound.” ~ AS
“Somehow from Bach’s music I can only see his humility and modesty…very, very important…that he has absolutely no ego, this concept of I, is non-existent in Bach…the way I see it, he’s writing it for us…I would loved just to have heard him play on the organ, and improvise on the organ…if I had one wish in life, that I could ask for, that would be to hear Bach play on the organ.” ~ AS
“Bach gives me immense pleasure…the joy of freedom, the joy of movement…it gives me emotional, intellectual, and physical pleasure, and satisfaction…so what more can you ask for…” ~ AS
danielleboudrot
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