Jean-Luc Ho

Jean-Luc Ho created this program as part of his residency at the Festival Bach en Combrailles. He explains here his approach for the festival:

Bach in Combrailles: This year you are presenting the Art of Fugue, what does this work represent in your journey, why tackle it now?

Jean-Luc Ho: Every musician grows up with dreams: to go on a pilgrimage to such a mythical organ, to hope one day to tackle works of greater significance .... in my case, The Art of Fugue has always figured in sides of Bach's Passions, Vespers of Monteverdi. " Now ?" … Because there is this residence at the Bach en Combrailles festival! This three-year companionship, this great confidence which is granted to me pushed me to this madness ... Ah yes, there will also be the Goldbergs then! Truth be told, I've been thinking about The Art of Fugue since I was 12 years old. I grew up with the recording of Leonhardt, I also listened to him very early in concert. But I needed a "frame" to mount this work, the residency was the right moment for this first work.

BEC: What fascinates you about this work?

JLH: More than all other works by Bach, these fugues have been the subject of all kinds of studies ... For some it is a great treatise on the art of counterpoint, a very elaborate numerology ... whatever it is , I see there since the first contact music of absolute purity.

BEC: But then how do you "manage" the rich polyphony?

JLH: playing The Art of the Fugue as a whole allows you to approach it as a long journey, a great story unfolding before our ears. Not like a social conversation, in French, rather like a debate of ideas where each speech, each argument intensifies the discourse. Musical lines, in counterpoint, respond, oppose, look at each other, are transformed. Gathered together, these "characters", here called fugue, subject, counter-subject, answer ... form a remark of exceptional intelligence. The Art of Fugue must be worn, embodied. I do not believe in this clarity, transparent and objective, that we associate with the learned works of Bach. The polyphonic writing celebrates the meeting, the listening, the enrichment, thus the Art of the Fugue also moves by its very great vitality.

BEC: The question of the destination of this music has long been debated, even if a consensus seems to favor the thesis of an approach for the keyboard, what is your position on this point?

JLH: If the organ is the polyphonic instrument par excellence, the harpsichord is that of refinement, of suggestion. It’s a chance for me to be able to make this work heard over two days, with two different voices.

BEC:… and the clavichord?

JLH: Ah ... it is indeed another dream ... the Art of the Clavichord Fugue. I see it as a sort of accomplishment: clarity of voice independence; need, much more than the harpsichord and the organ to sculpt the lines. The keyboard instrument is forgotten. I shiver! But it's not for now :)

BEC: Like Bach, we know your particular attachment to the clavichord ... Forkel, his first biographer, writes "The clavichord was his favorite instrument. The harpsichord, although susceptible of a great diversity of expression, did not have enough soul to its liking, and the fortepiano was of its time in such an embryonic state that it could hardly be content. He therefore considered the clavichord to be the best instrument, either for studying or for making music in private ", what do you think of this remark?

JLH: "to make music in private", yes, I would add "with humility" for these last works where Bach, from the 1740s, sought a kind of abstract perfection. One can imagine quite well the pleasure that Bach had to take to realize what one would call in other fields his "masterpiece" and to revel in it on his favorite instrument, in the evening, once all his big family was finally asleep ...

BEC: How do you go from "intimate music", to a concert, to a public presentation?

JLH: For this corpus, I would simply invite the listeners to close their eyes. I also wonder about the need for applause ...