Masaaki Suzuki
About
Conductor, organist, harpsichordist; founder of Bach Collegium Japan; Yale professor
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Claims by Masaaki Suzuki (20 of 31)
St. John's Passion Was Shockingly Dramatic Innovation
Bach's St. John's Passion (1724) was a shocking innovation because the passion tradition had derived from simple liturgical Bible reading set to tones, and even by Bach's time the still-performed Johann Walter passion was essentially a single F major chord reciting texts; Bach's first Leipzig passion brought a dramatic, oratorio-style intensity no one expected.
Köthen Period Lacked Lutheran Cantata Opportunity
During Bach's time in Calvinist Köthen he composed mainly secular works because he had no opportunity to write Lutheran cantatas; while he may have been happy composing organ, instrumental, and secular works, his desire to do more Lutheran church work was a reason he moved to Leipzig.
Suzuki Performs Passion as General Sacred Music
Suzuki approaches the St. John's Passion not as liturgy but as general sacred music performed in concert, where the performers' job is simply to do their best sound-wise and text-wise, leaving the music to work on individual listeners according to their own situation and thoughts.
Calvin Affirmed the Value of This World
Suzuki credits being Calvinist for his outlook because Calvin was one of the first reformers to acknowledge the value of activity and culture in this world (not only heaven); though Calvin limited congregational singing to psalms, outside the church he supported cultural activity like publishing and arranging psalms, allowing cultural work to be evaluated under the notion of God's general grace.
Devotion Matters More Than Technique in Hiring
When auditioning musicians for the Bach Collegium Japan, technical ability must be judged, but the most important quality is how much a musician can devote themselves to the music and how much genuine interest they have, not technique alone.
Performance Values Change Across Generations
The sense of value about musical performance changes continually across generations; a romantic, very slow interpretation like Mengelberg's St. Matthew's Passion, though completely different from modern practice, worked and was right and stimulating in its own time.
Boy Missionaries Played Organ in Portugal
Before 1639, churches and organs existed in Japan (including at Azuchi near Kyoto), and boy missionaries were sent at least twice from Japan to the pope in Rome; during the multi-year voyage some practiced the organ on the ship, so that on arrival at Évora in Portugal one could immediately play the organ, astonishing everyone.
Beethoven's Ninth a December Phenomenon in Japan
Beethoven's Ninth holds special meaning in Japan, with more than a hundred performances in December alone, and some projects gather more than 10,000 people to sing the choral ending, making it a beloved mass musical event rather than a single ordinary concert.
Bach Can Be Found Anywhere Not Just Leipzig
Visiting historic sites like St. Thomas Church in Leipzig is meaningful but does not provide a connection to heaven or the original atmosphere, because the church's interior is now structurally quite different from Bach's time; Bach can be found anywhere in the world rather than in any particular place.
Organ Restoration Quality Is Decisive
The quality of a Bach organ depends heavily on how it has been restored: historic organs were Romanticized in the 19th century to suit the era's taste and then re-restored in the 20th century toward their original 17th/18th-century state, so the manner of restoration—as with the Martinikerk Groningen Schnitger organ restored by Jürgen Ahrend—is the key point.
Brandenburg Concertos Encode Social Hierarchy
Citing Bach specialist Michael Marissen, Suzuki argues the Brandenburg Concertos symbolize social hierarchy: No. 1's two horns symbolize the court's dignity, No. 2's trumpet/oboe/recorder/violin represent instruments any stadtpfeifer must master, and No. 3, dominated by threes (three violins, violas, cellos), deliberately leaves the second movement as a single bar so Bach himself could improvise it—essentially a job-application offer to the Berlin Graf.
Gould's Articulations Are a Natural Conclusion
Glenn Gould's piano interpretations of Bach, far from being unusual, are a quite natural conclusion if one tries to make articulations and harpsichord/organ-like effects on the piano; his Goldberg Variations are a fabulous recording, though one or two of his organ recordings were strange.
Stringy Stops Define Bach-Region Organs
Organs in Bach's region of Saxony and Thuringia had a different character from northern Germany, Italy, or France, with many stringy stops whose high overtones resemble string instruments, a character that is fundamentally important to Bach's organ music—yet no single extant organ from that time can play all of Bach's organ works because his composition always surpassed the organs available.
Avoid Over-listening to Other Recordings
Suzuki deliberately tries not to listen too much to other recordings before recording because of too much influence, valuing instead the lived experience of the recording sessions themselves, during which the music is absorbed into every cell of the performers' bodies amid significant life events.
Cannot Think Beyond the Current Bar
While conducting and recording Suzuki cannot think of anything other than the music—not even the next bar—concentrating entirely on what is coming next and on what atmosphere must be realized in each part; he is not distracted by physical fatigue, drawing energy from the music itself.
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