Thursday, October 31, 2013

Pains and Troubles and Creation ...


John Eliot Gardiner on J.S. Bach:
So there's a sense that he's always the outsider, that he's up against something, that he's incorrigible to some extent. And he carries on right until the bitter end fighting battles which really he didn't need to, maybe. And that is one side of his personality. And maybe it was a creative side because it — in his embattled state — fired him up to write the music that he did. On the other hand, there's a totally different side to him — the convivial family man who welcomed all visiting musicians and who took infinite pains to look after the musical education and the career steps of his children. So there is a fault line running right through his personality, I feel.
-- From NPR's interview with Gardiner for his new book, BACH: Music in the Castle of Heaven

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