If my interpretation could be expressed in words, then what would be the point of performing? I shall be relative brief and say only that anything which passes through the corporeal and sanguine — in other words, the human — has no right to be anything but wholly subjective and human. The notion that a wilful dryness somehow brings us closer to the composer, or that a change of equipment and a handful of notions picked up in a performance practice course is a safe substitute for the responsibility to take artistic risks, are ideas whose intellectually bankrupt nature is exposed by one bar of music played by one not afraid of being wrong. I have no idea what Bach wanted his music to sound like, and the only material we have remaining from him is a form of notation that in its history has been more of a mnemonic device than one meant to transmit a specific performance style as such, but it doesn’t mean that I am afraid to ask Bach that question in the full view of spectators. As Ralph Kirkpatrick said, great art does not answer questions but rather, it asks them.

Mahan Esfahani