Let There Be Life: On Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (BWV 147)
Interpretations, Vol. I: Bach
*
When a day has gone very badly, when clouds pelt tears unceasingly, so unavoidably, that it seems nothing could possibly interrupt the downpour, the soft but firm tone of a low octave in G comes through from the deep, to rupture the darkness.
Thus, it begins.
Music: simply, purely. A continuous, cyclical line that’s not extended or not abbreviated, but grows, satisfying in itself, unmistakably beautiful.
There is no announcement. Nothing imposed. It does not arrive from above, but seems to emerge from within its own movement, as though the line had been there already, waiting to be heard.
It is an unassuming piece, yet it occupies a singular place in the musical world: universally recognized and accepted.
It belongs to what we call the canon. A piece of music that feels settled, resolved, assured. Even something close to sacred.
If beauty exists beyond preference, if it can be encountered rather than assigned, then this music approaches it directly.
And for that very reason, it is so rarely examined for what it actually does.
It offers an aural message.
**
Let there be life.
A path materializes before you.
Draw in the first breath.
Become conscious.
The journey is starting.
Awakening from the notes themselves.
Not just their arrangement but their very spirit.
Its timbres invoke coming into being.
Commencing.
That is why it became mine.
The first piece I chose to record and release.
My first breath and movement into professional musical life.
I enter it as a musician, an artist, an interpreter.
***
My performance is an expression of coming into being and then — becoming alive.
Calm but immense. Emergence into the world.
The performance communicates that to be alive is to be in perpetual motion.
As human beings we tend to move at a steady tempo. We also reserve the right to slow or accelerate, to sway or stretch, as the spirit of the music moves us.
Rubato is a universal law of all aural art.
From tempo, we shift to tone. How heaviness or lightness, attack and manner of release, legato or staccato, pedal or dry, give shape to the music — and resonate beyond verbal communication.
My performance commits care to the score for guidance, without limiting or forbidding, but rather welcoming divergence and spontaneity. The score provides grounding and assurance; it is not a set of moral laws.
May each note carry its expression outward.
The goal: to transport you to another register.
****
The sound follows these principles.
It resists uniformity.
It is full and resonant as the music develops. The melodic line explores the paradox of change within its repetitions; of smoothness, unevenness, and singing without excess brightness. The lower register carries weight without becoming dense. The sound space around the instrument remains continuous and open, free of artificial imposition.
Dynamics are lush and varied, while also holding their place. The sound, loud or soft, retains its shape. Always audible, left free to rise and fall according to the movement of the line.
What results is a coherent surface rather than a perfected one. Something that can hold variation, sustain tension, and still return to rest.
*****
Something new is being attempted here.
Without impositions, critiques, corrections, or purifications. These are not at play. What I pursue arises through the very act of playing.
In this piece, I use the Myra Hess transcription, as most do. But from that point forward, the movement follows what, to me, the music itself seems to require.
The tempo does not remain static. It shifts, almost imperceptibly, with each repetition of the music, as the line rises toward the apex.
When we reach the climax, it does not simply arrive as impact.
It opens:
Suspended for a moment, then released. Radiant. Life bursting forth. The fullness of breath, desire, and joy. Then folding back into the stillness from which it emerged.
But changed. Something has happened:
The arc completes itself by a return to its beginning, this time with experience.
This is the first piece in my forthcoming release, Interpretations, Volume I: Bach.
It does not present the whole.
It opens it.
Listen quietly. But also openly.
Carefully.
At ease.
Let it unfold.
May 19, 2026.