Immortal Bach
6/4/2023
As part of my project "follow me with bach" in 2021 I performed all sonatas and partitas for violin solo by J.S.Bach (BWV 1001-1006) in one day in Würzburg in the pilgrimage church "Käpelle", the "Hofkirche" of the Würzburg Residence but also in an unusual place, the Würzburg main station. The concert in the train station was one of the most intense experiences I have ever had as a musician. For in this unfamiliar environment, the ambient noise there and in the coming and going of the audience surprised by the music, Bach, fascinating for everyone, unfolded a completely different power than in the concert hall. Bach in the train station became train station in Bach.
In my current project "Immortal Bach" I want to alienate not only the local setting, but also the musical one. Through my encounters with composers such as Bertold Hummel (recording of the "Suite for Solo Violin" for BR) , Jörg Widmann (world premiere of his "Étude V" for solo violin in 2008) and others, I have been able to experience that Bach's work continues to be the basis and reference point for works of new music.
It is my concern to work out the connections between Bach's works and today's compositional work and to show that his music can not only create connections and bridges across several centuries, but can generally overcome seemingly unconnected, separated things.
Johann Sebastian Bach's "Adagio" of Sonata No.1 G minor sounds like a return to the musical cornerstone after the final note of Jörg Widmann's "Ètude V". The Partita No.1 in B minor, BWV 1002 with the consistently executed form of dance movement followed by a double opened up to me anew in the (intuitively) program I put together with "Contrasts" by the Korean composer Isang Yun, whose musical work is based on the Far Eastern philosophy of Taoism.
These exemplary juxtapositions build bridges between the most diverse cultures in East and West, the living with the past, make the seemingly immovable structure in Bach's music appear as if under the magnifying glass, that we can experience music once again anew and differently through the changing temporal perspectives in the here and now.
In these times, which often trigger apocalyptic thoughts in me, I hope to find something reconciliatory and unifying in "Immortal Bach."
