Bach Quotes

“Bach's simple and basic themes ultimately engage and appeal to my adolescent side while the seemingly complex arrangements, though perhaps patronizingly in some cases, also reflect my juvenile perception of what looks and sounds 'grown-up,' intelligent, refined and sophisticated. There were few composers and musicians in my youth that I could say understood me and really got me, almost all were classical. J. S. Bach was one one of them.”

“Wouldn't it be nice if there weree a planet where the sound of rain falling is like Bach?" he says."Yes, Planet Bach," I respond.He smiles -"Yes", he murmurs- picturing it, hearing it.”

“Just read The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. Oh my, what currents run deep! Beautifully seen, beautifully told. Praise praise praise . . . Pardon my French, but you are one darn major American writer!"---Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, on Sandcastle and Other Stories”

“If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.”

“Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.”

“There is much more to playing the clavier than playing written music. Do you realize with accompanying there is often nothing written out but the bass line--the left hand? There might be a few notations as to a suggested harmony, but it is up to me to fill in the music, at the proper volume, style, and harmony for the soloist--often instantly. I've heard it said that Bach questioned wether the soloist or the accompanist deserves the greatest glory.”

“What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.”

“To wake up one day and be Steinway and Glen in One... Glen Steinway, Steinway Glen, all for Bach.”

“Others, tiring of the sound of Buxtehude and Bach for hours on end, would complain there was no tune. That was exactly the thing he liked best about a fugue, the fact that it could not be sung. A fugue was not singular, as a melody was, but plural. It was a conversation.”