Bach

“I think what’s magnificent about Bach is that, when you listen to this music, and it moves you so much, I mean, it’s just a bunch of sound waves going — crashing into your ear, and you have to contain — you see this emotion bubbling up, you start seeing, like, you know, tearing up, and saying, well, what’s going on? These are just sounds crashing into my — what’s going on in here?

So, of course, you could say, well, it’s just Bach. He’s a genius. You know, that’s just the way it works. No, not so easy. I have to have the ability in my brain to create that emotion. I mean, all Bach is doing is sending a bunch of wave — of sound waves. I have to be able — and when I say I, I mean everybody.

There’s something extremely optimistic and really almost dizzying when you hear something, and it moves you so intensely inside. And you realize, but this is you who is being moved. Nobody’s forcing this inside you. So in your brain, there must be this reservoir of beauty which most often is untapped, goes untapped. But if you can find it with the right spotlight, then you discover this amazing, uh, you know, uh, you know, consonances, or dissonances, or this amazing, narrative, story, inside you.”

—	– Bernard Chazelle, from his upcoming conversation with Krista Tippett on the cosmology of Bach.