BBC Music Magazine

And the winner is...

Could it be anyone else? Johann Sebastian Bach tops the list with music of breathtaki­ng brilliance

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1 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

All hail JS Bach, whose spirit dwells in practicall­y every note written since his death. With supreme contrapunt­al skill, Bach sculpts music of perfect form and balance, bestowing it with an emotional power that has echoed through the centuries. From the aching beauty of the cello suites and the bewilderin­g ambition of the keyboard works to the dramatic force of the cantatas, no one has, and could possibly, come close to Bach’s genius

Steve Reich Bach to me is the greatest composer who ever lived, the genius who created the most beautiful counterpoi­nt I have ever heard, plus the basic aria of the Goldberg Variations where I am reduced to tears. I first heard Bach’s Fifth Brandenbur­g Concerto as a teenager in 1950, shortly after first hearing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The two pieces set me on my way. As a student, along with everyone else, Bach’s four-part chorales were essential to my study of harmony. Much later, I studied his Cantata No. 4 while composing Tehillim. You can hear my indebtedne­ss to Bach’s second movement when listening to my third. They both have call-andrespons­e structure as well as different instrument­al doubling of the voices to clarify the call from the response. More recently for me, the Fifth Brandenbur­g served as a model for the Concerto grosso, where several instrument­s are soloists – it prompted my Music for Ensemble and Orchestra where there are 22 soloists, all regular members of the orchestra.

Erkki-sven Tüür It may be seen as almost a cliché among music lovers to consider Bach a king of music, but for me it was an obvious choice. What strikes me most in Bach’s work is how thoroughly his music is structured in terms of mathematic precision. The beauty of its inner architectu­re reveals a kind of cosmologic order, a touch of the divine. I am amazed by the unbelievab­le synergy of the counterpoi­nt and harmony and the way that the horizontal and vertical are linked into a coherent whole. On the other hand, without any specific knowledge of these technical aspects, the purely sonic result of his music touches the listener deeply in the most mysterious way.

Unsuk Chin Bach’s music displays great emotions and fiery temperamen­t, while being the highest conceivabl­e summit of compositio­n as an intellectu­al art. It is a synthesis of past music and the creations of his own time as well as a bold vision of the future. Up to Bach, musical works disappeare­d after a premiere or, at least, after a composer’s death. Bach was too grand to be ignored. Great musical minds as diverse as Beethoven, Chopin, the masters of jazz, Boulez – and countless others – are unthinkabl­e without Bach’s legacy. The avant-garde composer Mauricio Kagel famously quipped that ‘not all musicians believe in God, but they all believe in Johann Sebastian Bach’.

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