Helmuth Rilling died.
If that name means nothing to you, it explains why I don’t muse about music more, though I love music more than life itself. Nietzsche nailed it: “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
Of all music, I love none more than the cantatas and large-scale choral works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. I’ve listened to them all many times. Some 250 of these works survive — roughly 120 hours of music — and none’s a dud. More than a handful must be included on any sane listener’s list of the most magnificent music ever. In quantity and quality, no human achievement exceeds and few rival it. One might argue the equivalence of Michelangelo’s, Shakespeare’s, Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s output in terms of majesty and extent, but such specious contests are silly. America’s addiction to “best” lists arises from our pathetic desire to feel “on top of things,” notwithstanding our immeasurable ignorance. Bach was a working stiff – composer, organist, choirmaster, grade-school teacher, and father of twenty kids – who never had a bad day or took one off. And you think you’ve been busy!
Rilling recorded it all. There are four monumental cycles of Bach’s choral music. Each is wondrous in its way – this is Bach, after all – but Rilling’s my favorite. I may have listened to him conduct for a thousand hours, maybe more. Rest in peace, Helmuth. And thank you.
Why do we prefer one interpretation to another? We are what we love, but why we love remains a mystery to most of us. We “just do,” we say, with a shrug.
Music is a natural appetite. Some are born ravenous, for others it’s no big deal. After a day without music, my spirits wilt; after three, I’m sunk in gloom, my soul haggard and forlorn.
Science suggests dopamine may be involved. That’s beyond my ken. My hunch is meaning. Some folks are content with being, no questions asked. Dog-pal Henry’s of this school. Others demand of being what it obviously lacks: an explanation. We must be here for a reason, we insist, knowing our insistence absurd. Music – beauty, more generally – is my reason. I live to make it – I call what I do with words composing. That some have made it before makes it humanly possible, however implausible. Music is the star in my sky, a justification for deplorable humanity, the ecstasy that makes the ordeal of being worthwhile. Music, beauty, love, goodness – they all radiate from the same human yearning – lift my eyes from muck to miracle. My daily injection of music reminds me why I’m glad to be alive.
All four recordings of the Bach choral works are prodigiously competent, much better than Bach could have produced with his local Leipzig performers, nearer to what the composer heard with his inner ear. I smile imagining the master flabbergasted by the beauty of his creation. Absent Rilling, I’d be gulping one of the other three.
Rilling pleases most because his direction feels most tender. His sound may reflect less strict scholarship – he plays on modern, not period instruments. He does not press his players for impressive effects – exaggerated tempos, bravura performances. Love seems to guide his choices and his baton. The loveliness of this treasure is his emphasis.
My judgment may be hogwash – I’m a lover, no expert, armed to defend my contention. I listen with a lover’s lust not a scholar’s checklist. I revere Maestro Rilling as one might a surgeon whose competence saved one’s life. Many the dark hour he played for me and made my world come right.
“Gute Nacht, o Weltgetümmel.”