In the Beginning, There Was Bach

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.This opening sentence from the Gospel must sound familiar to you as well.So, what was there before the Word?If we look to the Bible, nothing.Billions of Christians throughout history have followed this Word.A film adaptation of The Silence Before Bach tailored to the Bible would probably go like this:In the beginning was Bach. Bach was with God, and Bach was (for music) God.For Bach lovers, this is a very familiar expression in terms of the divinity they attribute to Bach. In this view, Bach’s music is a divine grace sent to the world as the godly voice of music.Bach: The Silence Before Bach is a film woven with Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, fragments of his life, and transitions between past and present.Some brilliantly and cleverly constructed scenes seem designed to tantalize the palates of Bach and music lovers alike.In an empty subway station, a cellist begins playing Bach; another appears opposite him, then one beside him, another across, and so on—making us count a full 18 cellists. This scene, a blend of music, modernity, youth, and aesthetics, stands as the film’s most surprising moment.Though not to the same degree, another striking scene features dozens of pianists materializing on the stools of pianos awaiting sale in a musical instrument shop.As the film presents glimpses of Bach’s life, it evolves into a kind of documentary. We learn the story of the Goldberg Variations, commissioned by the Prince of Brandenburg as a remedy for sleepless nights. We encounter the irreplaceable satisfaction these variations gave people in an age devoid of technology—immortalized through Glenn Gould’s fingers.A witty and eloquent butcher using Bach’s handwritten manuscripts as wrapping paper for meat—and the bloodstained pages reviving forgotten Bach melodies—is a moment the film presents as both comic and tragic, introducing us to an urban legend. Just as Felix Mendelssohn, who lived long after Bach, truly brought the St. Matthew Passion back to life, the idea that its notes emerged from a butcher’s shop is equally ambiguous. Still, the steward wandering the pre-modern marketplace and making this unexpected discovery is just one of the pearl-like moments glowing within the film’s layers.It’s no surprise that the film gives special prominence to Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church, to which Bach devoted his life. We see Bach in the church first—engaging in warm conversation with a patron, then practicing at the piano.Then we meet the modern St. Thomas. An attractive cellist, clearly a mature musician, heads to the church with her cello. She tours the building with the choir director, and we join a rehearsal of the famous boys’ choir.We’re introduced to a Bach-themed version of the guided city tours that are inseparable from the West’s Gothic towns—and to a guide who embodies Bach. As if stepping straight out of Bach’s era, he swings his wig in a plastic bag, sips hot chocolate in a Leipzig café, then meets his group and, as he has done hundreds of times, begins to recount Bach and his world.The world is divided into two: those who love Bach and those who do not know him. The answer to why the pre-Bach world was musically a void may lie in this statement: Bach is one of the few things that prove to us the world is not a mistake.In the endless chaos and strangeness of the world, Bach’s emergence cannot be mere coincidence. As Einstein put it, God does not play dice with the universe.