My days begin and end with Bach. In the morning, I open up my case and my book of six cello suites transposed for viola, and begin to wake up. In the evening, after a long day of work and isolation, I play the same music to unwind and to escape from stress.

Before I go on and write about how wonderful my extra time for music is, I want to acknowledge that for most people, the pandemic is an entirely different scene. While some people are dying and others are fighting tooth and nail to combat the virus, I am privileged and lucky enough to stay at home and enjoy music.

Until recently, Bach’s works never really spoke to me. Despite the composer’s status as one of the greats, and the music world’s unanimous adoration of him, I always found the music too confined, too unexpressive, and perhaps even a little boring. Baroque music follows a strict set of norms regarding harmony, melody, and rhythm, making the music quite predictable, and at the surface, unexciting.

I’ve always much preferred the bombastic works of Shostakovich, the unapologetically romantic melodies of Brahms and Schumann, or the emotionally vivid symphonies of Mahler. These kinds of music always made sense to me. Composers of the romantic and modern periods more explicitly give the player a chance to fully express their emotions. The whole idea of romanticism was that emotions should be glorified and explored. Modern music was influenced by this, as well as the disturbing, grotesque events of the 20th century. This made it equally, if not more, conspicuously emotional. Bach, on the other hand, has always seemed dry.

But with the pandemic, something has changed. I’m alone all the time. I don’t get to play music with other people. No piano quintets, no symphonies, no sonatas. I’m not even performing for anyone anymore: the only person to hear my music is me(and my unfortunate neighbors). While I still enjoy working on my usual music, it felt right to play unaccompanied music, of which Bach is most famous for writing.

Bach wrote six cello suites, to be played alone on a single instrument. The suites are a staple of viola repertoire, as well, which means I’ve been playing them throughout my life. Previously I’d only ever touched them because my teacher or an audition forced me to, but I decided to pick them up after spending a month alone during the pandemic to finally give them a real shot.

At first, things went exactly as expected. I was unenthused after five minutes of playing. I felt like I was playing the background music to a painfully boring history documentary. I desperately wanted to understand why people loved Bach so much, though, so I turned to who everyone listens to for Bach: Yo-Yo Ma. I listened to his recording of the fourth cello suite, and upon careful listening, began to notice things. The appeal of his playing wasn’t that he was flawlessly nailing every note, but that he was carefully expressing ideas between the notes and between phrases.

Bach’s music geniusly meanders between different harmonies, chords, and keys. He carefully uses each string as a different voice, each of which sings on its own sometimes and with its fellow voices at other times. This is what Yo-Yo Ma brings out, and why he has become so famous. He exaggerates the tone differences between each string, deliberately playing different melodies on different strings. He also emphasizes when the harmony has changed, making the chord progressions obvious to the listener. It feels like he is making a statement with each movement, combining the details together in specific ways to form a big picture.

I’m no music theorist, but when I listen to Yo-Yo Ma play a passage where each measure’s harmony meanders further away from the original key, I can feel myself aching for things to return back to normal. When they finally do, I get a sense of relief. I get the same feeling when life gets too turbulent and all I want is to do is go home and lay in bed. Maybe lots of people are having that feeling right now, waiting for the world to recover and for life to feel okay again. While the notes may follow a strict set of rules, the big picture Bach paints with them is symbolic of the human experience. This is where the emotion lies in Bach. I didn’t fully realize it until now.

When I began to use some of the same strategies in my own Bach playing, everything started to make more sense. The music felt more introspective and even empathetic. It felt natural to play, and most importantly, it felt human. It almost seems now as if Bach wrote the music specifically for someone who is alone and isolated. It’s not necessarily about performing for people, but also about playing as a way to understand yourself and your experiences. It’s about finding complexities within yourself, which I honestly haven’t had the chance to focus on until the pandemic. While I do miss my regular life, I’m happy to have Bach alongside me when I’m alone.

[submitted on 5/24/2020]