After Bach II 

The Bach album comprises four preludes and one fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the Allemande from the fourth Partita, interspersed with seven compositions or improvisations by Mehldau inspired by the complementary works of Bach—including Mehldau’s Variations on Bach’s Goldberg Theme.

Brad Mehldau, speaking of the “universality” of Bach’s music, says in his liner note: “The more you try to engage with him, the more your own personality becomes visible, unavoidably. You are not playing Bach—Bach is playing you, in the sense that he lays you bare ... The greatest choice you make at all times is not out of an absence, but from what is there, in its totality. Specifically, it is the constant choice you make in how to negotiate between harmony and melody.”

Liner Notes

After Bach II is a hybrid, like its predecessor from 2017, After Bach. I was gratified that the first record was well received by listeners, and emboldened to release a second installment. I noticed that After Bach was understandably confusing to some listeners, who did not always know where Bach ended and where I began, and to what extent the music was written or improvised. So, to clarify, as with the previous album, there are three approaches here: music from Bach, a written composition of mine, and improvised pieces as well.  

These recordings grew out of a commissioned composition, Three Pieces After Bach. The first two of those pieces, “Rondo” and “Ostinato”, appeared on After Bach, and the final “Toccata”, is included here. All three took the same approach, which was to give an “answer” to one of Bach’s pieces, and follow it directly, “after Bach”. In this way, one could hear directly how I used Bach as a starting point. I hope that even if one is not partial to my compositions, they can still hear how endless Bach’s contribution to music is, and the way it can play out in music today. There is everything in Bach. He remains an active inspiration for a multitude of musicians – performers, composers and improvisers alike.

In the commissioned performances, and more that followed, I added more Bach pieces to extend the program, but now, instead of writing more responses, I improvised them. This was in one regard a personal challenge: to present a program as interpreter, composer and improviser, and to find a seventy-five or so minute story to tell in all that. I’ve endeavored to make such a wordless kind of story in the recordings as well.

This record begins with my own “Prelude to Prelude,” which folds directly into the Bach Prelude in E Major which inspired it. The mood and musical material of “Prelude to Prelude” are revisited twice more, in the middle piece, “Intermezzo”, and at the close of the record, “Postlude.” These three improvised pieces are meant to act as grounding points within the varied material.

Bach’s D Minor Prelude is next, followed by my “Toccata.” I think the listener will hear easily how Bach’s piece, with its relentless motoric rhythm and urgent harmonic movement, inspired my composition. Bach’s winsome, delicate Allemande from his D Major Partita comes next, answered with an extended improvisation of mine, “Cavatina.”

Bach’s Preludes and Fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier Books I and II are typically heard alongside each other in pairs, and for his A Minor Prelude and Fugue from Book I that follows, I opted for “Between Bach,” inserting my improvisation between the two, exploiting the close intervals of Bach’s masterful fugal theme, and also taking inspiration from the rhythmic funkiness that I’ve always felt in the fugue.

With the Variations on Bach’s Goldberg Theme, I adhere to Bach’s own “frame” – the harmonic and formal structure he introduces in the famous opening Aria – in my own improvised variations. Bach’s frame is so strong in its own right, independent of the endless invention he found in his own variations. Perhaps my contribution can celebrate Bach the formalist, who receives comparatively less attention than Bach the harmonist/melodist.

I will tell briefly how this idea came about, as it is one of those happy unexpected gifts we receive sometimes as musicians, in a context that initially appears troublesome. Martin Engstroem, the impresario of the longstanding Verbier Festival in Switzerland, invited me to participate in a gargantuan, unprecedented gala evening, in which the Goldberg Variations would be presented in a rolling program, each one played by a different artist. Mr. Engstroem asked me to play one of the variations. I considered it for a moment, and declined. Frankly, I did not have the balls to do that in front of so many piano giants. The Verbier is host to the premiere classical pianists of our time, and this evening was no exception.

I presented another idea: I would improvise a variation instead. Mr. Engstroem accepted, his only guideline being to keep my contribution to 3 minutes. Sergei Babayan opened, giving a sanctified reading of the Goldberg’s famous aria theme. Sauntering around backstage that night, and performing as well, were Danil Trifonov, Yevgeny Kissin, Yuja Wang, Richard Goode, Michel Pletnev and Yefim Bronfman, just to name a few. Serious company.

I played a variation in 5/8 time, and it seemed to go over well with the audience – no eggs were thrown. When I went into the studio to record the music presented here, I built on that approach, presenting an aria-like opening theme, continuing with 5/8 and 7/8 metered variations, toggling between major and minor modes, and culminating in a high-energy finale.

There are as many viewpoints about interpreting Bach as there are performers and listeners, and some are perhaps misleading. A critical comment that arises with regularity goes something like: “I did not hear Bach in Player X’s performance. I heard Player X.” The idea is that the performer got carried away by their own sentiment, and obscured the greatness of the composer’s music. Yet more often than not in these assessments, the observer is the one carried away by their own sentiment as to just what the greatness of Bach is, or, more accurately, what facet of Bach’s greatness should be expressed. There is the implication that there is some perfect version of Bach out there, one that everyone should strive for.

That is a grand idea, but whether it is true can probably never be proved. The opposite is certainly true, though, and thankfully, we have a multitude of examples to prove it. If I consider a few of my favorite pianists – András Schiff, Murray Perahia, Grigory Sokolov, Richard Goode – I would submit that when they play Bach we hear more of them, wonderfully so, than we do in other instances – more, perhaps, than when they play Beethoven, for example. This has to do with the universality of Bach’s music. Here, we must qualify that term. Beethoven’s music, for all its universality, is very much about Beethoven, this striving human being, this great personality who is always close to you in the music, and you engage with that personality directly. Whether the performance is strong, or even just entry-level, Beethoven’s big personality dominates, and the performer is in his service.

It would seem to follow that with a grand, deified figure like Bach, being in his service would be the obvious, only choice – the choice of humility, of reverence. It is indeed, as a starting point. No musician who approaches Bach with any serious aim can avoid a humbling course. Yet something more happens: With Bach, the more you try to engage with him, the more your own personality becomes visible, unavoidably. You are not playing Bach – Bach is playing you, in the sense that he lays you bare. Musicians love Bach in a different way than other composers, because he feeds them. You learn about yourself: as a striver-towards-beauty, as an intellect, and not in the least, as a problem-solver, because of the demands of the counterpoint. What you choose to emphasize or forgo at any given moment says much about you, even, in a fashion, in a “moral” sense – as to what your own musical values are, and why. You are called to examine yourself. This is of course true to a degree with any composer, but Bach is unique. The written score, in its perfection and completeness, is nevertheless open-ended. It gives you the “what”, but allows you to decide “how”. It is in this sense that Bach is less visible, yet omnipresent, because in order to engage in the music, you must decide.

It is not only that there are many choices to make, with little or no road map, in terms of articulation, tempo, and dynamics. The greatest choice you make at all times is not out of an absence, but from what is there, in its totality. Specifically, it is the constant choice you make in how to negotiate between harmony and melody. This goes to the heart of Bach’s singular achievement. In him, more than any other composer who came before or followed him, those two are one and the same. This works in two ways. On the one hand, the harmonic movement comes about through simultaneous melodies. Equally important, though, is that each of those melodies expresses harmonic implication – the movement between tension and resolution – monophonically, in a single line.

Most famously, we apprehend this in the majesty of Bach’s fugues. They achieve a multi-dimensional entelechy, whereby we can listen to the logic of their discreet voices, or hear the logic of the whole, or some cross section of the whole, and always hear that harmony/melody. The division between the discreet, conspicuous quality of melody and the seismic, underlying quality of harmony is dissolved. It is fascinating and humbling to observe this more broadly as a human feat of creativity, as a fulcrum point in music. Bach superseded everything before him and affected everything after, but what he achieved could only happen once, by him alone. His music champions a humanist outlook and a belief in the divine with equal measure.

We apprehend this fusing of harmony and melody most famously in the fugues, but it plays out in the Preludes as well. Bach is never arrpeggiating just for the sake of arpeggiating; he never makes figuration in the service of a melody, with little story to tell in its own right. In the D Minor Prelude here, undulating arrpeggiation is the story – it is also one long melody from beginning to end, and needs no underpinning. This is why Bach is a model for me as a jazz musician. In my improvised solos, I want to make melodic phrases which carry harmonic implication, and create harmony that moves in a melodic fashion. This is a crucial component in the storytelling.

The final Bach selection here is the E-flat Major Prelude. In its free, elastic texture, in its fusion of melody and harmony, he gives the player that open-ended invitation at all times. For me, the piece can be so sensuous, even luxurious, inviting me to linger here and there along the way in its unfolding, continuous stream. If I linger too long, though, the slower, stately chorale-like theme that hovers around or intersects with that stream will lose its thrust, and the large glacial cadences will diminish in effect. It’s a metaphor of being/becoming – finding the balance between enjoying the ride and keeping one’s eyes on the road, between pleasure and purpose.    

I thank you for engaging in the music here. Importantly, it should not be overlooked that the listener as well has that open invitation from Bach to hear his music on their own terms. You, in turn, may hone in on any given aspect, regardless of what the player emphasizes. Will you focus on the distinct melodies that poke out of the texture, or bask in the bigger picture of the harmony? Will you marvel in the frame itself – the formal rigour, the economy of material? Or, you can simply turn off your thinking cap and feel the music, sensually and emotionally. You have the choice.

Brad Mehldau