LDV38.1

22 BACH_THEWELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER You feel a kind of fraternity with Robert Schumann. Is it the same with Johann Sebastian Bach? Definitely not. My admiration for him falls into the category of devotion. What do we know about Bach’s life? In fact, very little compared to Schumann, whose biography sheds a great deal of light on his works. And even if by some miracle we did acquire new information about Bach’s daily life, we would still be confused. For there is nothing to enable us to assert that such-and-such a cheerful piece – the Brandenburg Concertos, for example – is in any way linked to a happy moment in his life. Indeed, it may well be quite the opposite! Bach’s output is unique in the history of music, probably because it combines a kind of formal perfectionwith the expression of deeply human sentiments. Consequently, to change even a single note of The Well-Tempered Clavier is unthinkable. And yet, in this vast compendium of his music, Bach also reveals his personality to some extent. What do you mean? Take humour, for example. People usually think humour in music appeared at a later period, with Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. But in the theme of the Fugue in B flat major from Bach’s First Book, you have that stubbornly repeated note in the countersubject. Doesn’t that raise a smile?