The Significance of Bach

We have considered the most important of the variables involved in musical interpretation: the performing forces, the dynamics, and the articulation. Further components, such as questions of tempo and the scope of variation of the expressive use of diction, would be worth consideration. But let us leave what has been said as sufficient. I hope that you will allow me a personal evaluation of the "historical-authentic" approach to Bach's music.

On the most basic level, the "reconstruction" approach to interpretation is a reaction against those who too unthinkingly ignore facts relating to Bach performance practice. We owe thanks to this movement and to the musicians who are a part of it for the significant impetus they have given to an understanding of Bach's music as he knew it. This, the knowledge of the performance practice of Bach's era, is something I consider today to be a precondition to the presentation of Bach's music. Reconstruction, however, is not interpretation. Have we, as men of our time, become so insecure that we no longer have the courage to adapt the spiritual heritage of our history to fit the times in which we live? Are we not, by making music in this "historic" manner, erecting alien facades that deflect our vision from the actual message, the meaning of this music?

I have previously cited church music, performed in the churches, as the third level of confrontation with the music of Bach. Here, within the context of the church service, the message of the music and the expectation of the listeners are attuned to each other and fit together. It is a great loss to the immediacy of the declarative power of Bach's music that we today seldom come to know this unity of purpose. In order to recreate this, I would be willing to make numerous compromises, such as when we perform a cantata in the worship service of the Memorial Church with some 350 singers.

The central importance of this environment to the meaningful experience of Bach's church music would suggest that it be left in the sanctuary. But our congregations have become too small a forum, and what Bach has to say is too important to be confined to our churches. When I am asked in Japan, as I often am, if it is necessary to believe in the content of the St. Matthew Passion in order to understand it, this signifies an interest beneath the surface of the sound itself that is inquiring into the self-understanding of the Christian West. Thus, what we are talking about is not the preservation of a cultural heritage, but rather the life and actual relevance of this heritage in our time.

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