Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.
There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment... only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me.
Bach, of course, was my first love. He still is. I mean, he's the man of my life, that's for sure. And when I say that there's been a re-evaluation, look, to be perfectly honest, I think I have a re-evaluation of my relationship with Bach probably every day, and that will never stop. And that's probably why I still get up in the morning and I do this.
I played a lot of Bach's partitas and sonatas; I like the way that Bach was abstracting already from these dance forms.
I think that Bach has a very nice sound on the lute. But I find that what I want to do with Bach is best revealed on the guitar.
If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.
I love Bach, I love Beethoven, I love Mozart, I love the Beatles, I love you know, Stockhausen, I love many things. But for some reason I come back to Elizabethan music because it's a little bit like the Beatles.
The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.
One of the tracks that I have is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - by the way, that's Bach's second son - Emanuel Bach's variations on "Le Folie." You'll definitely hear - I mean, I think if we listen to, say, the last couple of minutes of that track, there's a wide range of colors that the harpsichord is capable of. And I think, you know, that gives lie to the assumption that it doesn't have that kind of variety. And I think it very much speaks for itself.
Bach's music is really some of the greatest. I think, in some ways, Bach is the most profound composer of all.
And it totally has transformed my relationship with someone like, say, Bach. You know, Bach is born 330 years ago but, you know, gosh, he really is alive.
Yes, I mean like you know, having studied with Yehudi Menuhin that is like some direct route into Bach, because he was one of the foremost interpreters of Bach for the violin.
I love Mozart, and I love Bach, and Brahms, and - but at 13, I didn't understand any of that that I was playing.
Whenever you study composition you inevitably encounter Bach right off the bat. You can't get across the room without running into him and the other greats. Analyzing Bach absolutely influenced my jazz playing.
When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.
The music of Bach is so timeless, so fulfilling. You don't feel like you have to be in front of it. The music has everything, and you are there to find the balance when you conduct. You don't have to give too much of your individuality. It's Bach, so it's dangerous to get in the way.