What I appreciate in Bach is his ability to suggest to me what a belief in God feels like. This should present a hurdle to someone who, like me, doesn't believe in God - but it doesn't. What makes Bach's music particularly striking is that it's about the love of God. Most contemporary music is about love between two people. Bach is definitely someone with whom I love spending time, and try to do so as much as I can. It is very well worked out, but it seems almost as if it was written as it went along. You can listen to Bach from many points of view: you can admire the science of it, the incredible intelligence of it, but even if you don't have any musical training or knowledge, you can still enjoy it for the incredible spontaneous life of the melody. There are hidden elements in Bach for musicians it is very knowledgeable music, but what comes out of it is more of a spontaneity of expression. It feels so naturally written and genuine. To me, it feels as if I'm coming back home whenever I play Bach. I love Bach's music because it is so comforting. I listen to a wide variety of music, from Beck to Bax, but there's a bigness, an optimistic complexity and relish about Bach that makes me return to him in all moods, without ever getting bored. I find him calming, hypnotic, meditative, inspiring and, above all, consoling. I am not a deeply musical person - I don't play and have only the vaguest grasp of musical structures - so this cannot be intellectual, or mathematical, which is what people say Bach is all about. The Well-Tempered Clavier, Goldberg Variations, Art of Fugue and the amazing John Eliot Gardner Cantata recordings are on the CD, at home and in the car, a lot. But it has been over the last few years that, without meaning to, I have found I play Bach more and more - and other music a bit less. In the druggy, concept-album world of the mid-70s, it seemed like the weirdest, most extreme music we'd ever heard. Bach has been in the background for most of my life, one way or another - the Brandenburg concertos in my parents' record collection when I was a boy the Christmas music at school and I remember being stunned when, as a teenager, a friend played me the solo violin sonatas and partitas in a double record set.
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