JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH OR THE TRIUMPH OF INVENTION

The Festival Internacional de Música Antigua de Tenerife (Fimante) presents Johann Sebastian Bach or the Triumph of Invention.

Johann Sebastian Bach has been said to be the alpha and omega of keyboard music. Indeed, the German composer carried out a synthesis of the old modal counterpoint tradition and the tonal harmonic system, which was finally forged and shaped in his time. Therefore, alpha and omega, beginning and end. His work for keyboard summarises all the styles and manners of composition up to his time and he also sets the foundations for the later technical and artistic development of keyboard instruments, a fertile source most of the composer who came after have often resorted to.

This concert is also thought out as the beginning and the end in the life of a keyboard player who is devoted to the study of Bach’s work. This study starts at an early age, with the compositions that the musician diligently and lovingly copied in a notebook for the sole use of his wife Anna Magdalena. This is how she was initiated in the keyboard and it is also the same one used by practically anyone in the world who is interested in a keyboard instrument. In Bach’s learning plan for his wife, their children and his students, the composer included a series of collections of pieces with growing difficulty (preludes, inventions, symphonies, suites…) which culminated in The well-tempered Clavier, with the study of the most complex form in terms of composition technique: the fugue.

He also devoted his last efforts to it, dedicating his time to the composition of a piece that went against his time, a real legacy to future generations, a major work on human understanding: Art of Fugue.

Facing the work of Leipzig’s cantor is a real “path to perfection” for anyone, filled with pitfalls and difficulties, but which greatly compensates those who overcome it and manage to have a glimpse at the unfathomable depths of his music. Per aspera ad astram.