Returning to Bach; Metamorphosis (10)

Happy Birthday, J. S. Bach

I didn’t like Bach.

I struggled with him.

I just couldn’t understand him, no matter what.

And yet, when you study the piano, he’s unavoidable.

Looking back now,

I thinkit wasn’t that I didn’t learn him properly,

it was that there were very few teachers

who really understood him and could teach him that way.

Because I was taught that the subject

has to come through clearly.

But the other voices

remain undifferentiated,

blending into the background.

Once it becomes three voices or more,

all the other voices just get muddled together,

and I couldn’t make sense of it.

And when there were intervals creating dissonance,

it felt almost unbearable to hear.

It all just felt like a mystery.

But I kept going,

just out of a sense of obligation.

So when I finished Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier,

I felt an overwhelming sense of release.

I never have to play this again for the rest of my life!

I even celebrated quietly to myself 🥂🍾

I really did.

I was so firmly decided

that whenever I had to play something Baroque afterward,

I would take refuge in Scarlatti.

At least I discovered Scarlatti that way,

so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Later, when I returned to the piano

for various reasons,

I felt emotionally depleted, almost numb,

and no music moved me at all.

I didn’t know what to do.

I could still teach without playing, of course,

but it’s different when you’re not playing.

And yet, nothing interested me.

Even pieces I had once loved deeply

left me completely untouched,

just… nothing at all.

I was at a loss.

So I thought,

well, I might as well go back to the beginning.

And I pulled out Bach.

I didn’t like playing him,

but I had always loved listening,

so I started by listening again.

Not bad, I thought.

Then I tried playing.

And something interesting happened.

I began to notice that with Bach,

I didn’t have to force any emotion out of myself.

And because of that,

the structure began to reveal itself.

Oh, so this is how it works.

Ah… there was something hidden here.

Wait, he used this kind of harmony?

Around that time,

I happened to come across a truly beautiful recording.

The pianist was a young Korean woman,

probably still in her twenties,

who had recorded the complete Well-Tempered Clavier.

Her playing felt alive,

I found myself completely drawn in.

I ended up listening to the whole thing in one go.

I think someone had introduced her on a blog.

Apparently, in Europe, her playing is described as “unique.”

But that word, “unique,”

has a bit of a trick to it.

It’s not always a compliment.

It simply means “different,”

for better or worse.

Often, it’s what people say

when they don’t want to call someone “strange.”

That’s how it is, everywhere.

Once things begin to settle into a system,

they tend to distort.

So I read those reviews,

but only as something to notice.

Her performance was extraordinary.

After finishing the recording

I took out the Well-Tempered Clavier,

the very one I used to avoid,

and played as much as I could.

As I took in the music Bach had written,

something in me began to tremble.

And from that moment on,

Bach became my savior.

Happy Birthday.

Thank you

for leaving us so much music.