BACH WITH MORE BITE
INSIDER
BACH WITH MORE BITE
Many say he’s the greatest classical composer of all. But, asks Harry McKerrell, are you hearing him at his best?
Ask any self-respecting classical music aficionado who the greatest composer of all time is, and they’ll usually whittle down a shortlist of three key names: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and JS Bach.
Press them further on the issue and they will probably, though by no means inevitably, place Beethoven at number three and Mozart at two, before giving Bach the lion’s share of the plaudits in that coveted number one spot.
That’s all up for much contentious debate. My piano teacher, for instance, wouldn’t let me play a note of Mozart, considering it too perfect to be mangled by my ham-like fists.
That said, Classic FM and the BBC’s Classical Music sister site both consider Bach to be at the top of the classical tree; while Anthony Tommasini, chief classical music critic for the New York Times, proclaimed Johann Sebastian to be the greatest composer of all time in 2011.
I’m not here to settle that particular debate (I could, of course, given the obvious sway my name holds within scholarly circles). Instead, I’m here to espouse the virtues of Bach as a composer you need to add to your listening line-up, both for the purposes of testing your system’s capabilities and, perhaps more importantly, so that you can enjoy both his music and your set-up to the fullest extent.