Did the loneliness of the organist’s existence ever get you down? Absolutely not. It suited me perfectly. There are certain special places: I’m thinking notably of Strasbourg Cathedral, where the organ is located very high up and the organist can really appreciate that solitude. But even when you’re very far from your listeners, you can still sense very clearly whether they’re paying attention or not. It’s blatantly obvious in the case of audiences for ‘trumpet and organ’ recitals, where the solo organ pieces are there to give the trumpet player a rest: the audience is much less attentive then, and you can feel that. You recorded your complete Bach set over a very long period of time, and on six different organs. The choice of place seems important . . . For Bach, yes, it is. And although I didn’t do it on purpose, I recorded everything on organs by German builders. Odd, isn’t it? How did you go about it? Did you have to do a lot of scouting to locate them? No, they were instruments I knew already. The highpoint came with Weingarten – the organ on which I recorded the Passacaglia – which is an exceptional instrument in itself. Every organist dreams of playing that legendary instrument. It’s conceived around the figure 6, the Number of the Beast in Revelation – six windows, six departments, 6,666 pipes: just imagine the effect it produces! The resulting sound is something quite extraordinary! But alongside that one, which is really in a category of its own, my favourite instrument is the organ at Saint-Cyprien in the Périgord. 28 BACH ∙ THE ORGAN WORKS
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