Helene Grimaud talks about Bach

well I think what ba means to me is probably what he means to every single one of us as musicians his music really is is the Bible and I think it's also by playing his music that you Mark you're sort of technical growth and spiritual growth as a as an instrumentalist also also I think it's the touchstone that keeps keeps the playing honest too with BA because there is no there is no other way than the truth I mean that the this feeling is so so strong of something that is so totally authentic and and honest and direct and goes absolutely to the core of you know to the the very essence of the human soul that you will absolutely no way to cheat with anything of course that's a very good question one of my first teachers always said that you know buck should be the daily bread and that even if I was only going to play it much later or perhaps not at all in public that he should be part of my daily life and that was a wonderful piece of advice which I'm very thankful I actually respected and heeded but I think at the end the only way to to pay respect to box genius is to confront his music I mean this is the only way that it comes to life again you know it's like a sacred tech text it lives it lives a new with each interpretation so so there's no there's no avoiding it and I think I think staying away from it because you revere him too much would be so going counter everything that that drove him in his existence as an innovator as a as an instrumentalist himself as a composer as a great mystic in a way that that it would be really betraying his his various thoughts well of course one of the things that always fascinated me about bajas why is it that he has such tremendous impact on people who have no no foundation in classical music whatsoever so what is it that makes his impact so much more powerful than any other composer really and of course the dimma of universalism has sort of accompanied me during my entire life and it's a recurrent theme but for sure one can say now with certainty that Bach is the most universal of all composers in the sense of in the its am illogical root of the world that you know it is unique and yet pours in all directions and of course I was pondering that fact and also realizing that with BA you know beyond all of the questions about on which instrumentally be played and all these these questions of authentic performance that the only tradition that really matters I think is one of intellectual and emotional honesty I mean that's that is a tradition of art itself and if you if you live this principle then everything else is irrelevant just like whatever you play bhajan is irrelevant I mean I don't even remember which very inspired oddly enough baroque musician said that you could play a Bach on anything as long as the soul is in tune and this very much says it all and this is what gave me this idea of bringing together pieces of BA in their purest of forms namely the well-tempered clavier what I call for myself at least for a pianist the Bible within the Bible and to juxtapose these with transcriptions so Bach seen through the eyes of great pianist composers such as blues only listen hock one enough well I don't see how it could offend people in classical word at least not well-informed ones because the well-tempered clavier was never written as a cycle we know that many of the periods and fugues were written in separate times not chronologically so what we know now as the first book and the second book the they weren't composed in that order and and bah you know as he so often did with material he kept sort of treating it and reworking it and transcribing it himself I mean after all in the recording program there is the the concerto which is you have ba by liszt ba by Buitoni ba by on and off and then you have ba bi ba which is the concerto it was written originally for violin and so he did this with so much of his own material which continually reappears in various cantatas and and you know other other pieces as well that you know this is exactly what we were speaking of earlier that you have to be very careful that that no matter how all inspiring ba is to not let that somehow inhibit you from from working with with what he left us and again the this this cycle volt-amperes clavier was never never composed as we know it today I would say that yes it is in a way the pivot point of the program in the sense that well it was written for violin transcribed for the piano by Buitoni in a transcription which sounds more like it was meant for organ than for then for piano so it really encompasses so many aspects of the spatial characteristics of Bach's music I mean it is the single mightiest movement I guess probably that he ever ever composed and it's just I mean it's a magnificent piece every time there's something that is profoundly affecting and what I always found almost unfathomable is that at the end of these variations already for me I mean it's a it's a you know catted also know I mean it's a Cathedral of sounds and it's as if you know every variation is seen through a different colored stained glass window of such a Cathedral for example and what is absolutely incredible that at the end there is no conclusion and this piece is is leaving the performer and the listener with the sort of confirmed sensation that everything is possible in a way this is for me the incarnation of this this word alitalia which means in a Greek origin which means truth but what it really means is opening without retreat so that's what truth would be and for me the end of the Chaconne illustrates this to perfection throw me d-minor a bit it's it's one of the of the most important tonalities for me it's been haunting my my choice of pieces for for many years now there's something so solemn it is dramatic without being hysterical there's something absolutely there is a sense of density and gravity about but the reconciliation of opposites again some theme that is very very dear to my heart the idea that it is incredibly dense without being heavy so you you get this this idea of gravity and lightness somehow reconciled something solemn that actually it's pretty insightful a questioner for me it's always been about transformation about transformation without ever losing what the core is I guess it's going back to this idea of opening without retreat I mean you you open you change but you never honey a you know you're never in denial of any of the facts any of the cards that were dealt to you but somehow you keep growing from this you know sort of basic basic data and so this is yeah transformation I guess is is for me the the idea of this piece

Channel: Andreea

Views: 35,624

Keywords: andreea1407, andreea140794, Helene, Grimaud, Bach

Id: y6Mfszm9QRc

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2009