From the Prague studios comes a vision, a valued sharing, a voice. A voice which speaks of many truths without telling any added tales. The voice is from J S Bach, a man of our space, but from a different time. But despite the differences in its placement in history, the properties he observes and formulates are universal, and undeniable in their depth, detail, and description. And the voice is now respoken by an aware man – a man of this time and this place: Andrei Gavrilov.
Bach formulates ordered and organized sounds so beautifully basic that all people may reflexively understand him when he is allowed to speak unfettered. Andrei Gavrilov's hands ensure that Bach's truths remain as recognizable by the aware mind as any other sensate universal truth. The WTC's musical formulas fundamentally stimulate and inform the human mind as other formulas created by God within our world.
When one goes to the sea, one hears an unmistakable sound, sees an absolutely open horizon, and inhales the invariable scent of salt and sand. When one looks at the heavens on a wind-swept clear night, in a country where the lights of humanity are quiet in their speech to the eyes, one can see the familiar patterns, the beasts, the barons, the beauties and the beatitudes. When one wades into a crisp creek, the sand underfoot writes a message from the rain, and freely introduces particles of tan and silver and gold, a fellowship of fish and waterfowl, a countenance enveloped by the fragrantly unspoiled. When one goes into the mountains and looks across the horizon at the opposite end of the visible earth, the sky and soil that meeting it reveal themselves in all their grand curvature.
Now I am not suggesting that Bach is evoking these images. Rather I am saying that through the WTC, Bach reveals himself and his world in similarly familiar ways, with an impeccable clarity of purpose and proportionality that is as recognizable to us as the sea, sand and sky. And Andrei lets Bach speak his own mind as he does for every composer whose music he chooses: he allows Bach’s glorious formulations solve the problems of how consonance and dissonance are created and controlled in music, all the while delighting the senses with melodic majesty and wondrous awareness. Bach’s uncanny ability to share ideas across time lets future people understand him without interpretation. Like a Bible of sound, “Bach was written”, and Andrei’s hands speak Bach’s soul via every page of the Prelude-Fugue pairs. 🌞💫✨