Bach – Partitas, BWV 825-870

At the time of my writing these notes, there lives in England an extraordinary 37-year-old ‘Savant’ who can make huge, complex calculations in his head, recite ‘pi’ to over 21,000 decimal points, and master languages unknown to him (such as Icelandic) in one week. These abilities manifested themselves after a head trauma in his young years. Unusually he displays none of the social difficulties in communication which other more autistic Savants often have. Such extraordinary people maybe give us a glimpse of the true potential of the human brain, that most complex and mysterious organ. I am convinced that Bach’s abilities with music, the manipulation of sound in time and space, were on this superhuman level. Commentators at the time attest to his ability to assess immediately the full potential and possibilities of any given fugue subject. Another frequently mentioned skill was an ability to infuse his music with numerical and mathematical material. These notes will take a look at Bach’s first major publication, his ‘Opus 1’, the six wonderful Partitas, and try to understand and suggest his message to us. The music must be familiar to any serious keyboard player or music lover, so I will restrict myself to a personal reaction to this music. Thereafter I will try to ‘decode’ the bigger and deeper message that lurks beneath these fantastic notes.

Richard Egarr