Gold Medal Winner Natalya Pasichnyk
"Bach’s faith generated his music. I really hope that my new interpretation of his music can in turn generate faith. We need it in our current times more than ever."
Natalya Pasichnyk is an extremely talented, award-winning pianist, receiving a GMA Gold Medal in our June 2024 season. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, she began her musical education at the age of three and has not stopped since. She has performed on ten albums, performed across the world, and settled in Sweden, where she was named one of the country's "most influential cultural personalities." Her most recent album is Rethinking The Well-Tempered Clavier, her new interpretation of Bach's classic work.
Pasichnyk was kind to respond to our request for interview:
What is the story behind your decision to rework The Well-Tempered Clavier?
This piece is a sacred book for all professional pianists, especially during their educational years. It is compulsory for exams and competitions. It is easy to get used to it, just as we do with the Eiffel Tower, for example. We all see it as a Paris landmark and forget that it is a pioneering architectural work of art. I wanted to look at the WTC with fresh eyes.
There are thousands of recordings of the piece, which was composed more as a study book and not as a concert piece. But since it entered concert halls in the 19th century, there has been no clear consensus on how it should be performed. Discussions revolve around whether or not to use the pedal, ornamentations from the upper note or main, phrasings, dynamics ... Because there are no signs in the score, like those in the scores of the music of later periods, the performer has a huge space for creativity. I wanted to leave all these formal pianistic issues and search for the semantic meaning of each phrase and motive and see where it would lead me as a pianist.
I remember first hearing about the theory that the WTC is an artistic interpretation of the Bible from my first piano teacher when I was a child in middle school. The theory was put forward by Ukrainian-born musicologist Boleslaw Javorsky. Of course it was not popular in the deeply communist Soviet Union, which is why there were no printed copies of his work available. But Javorsky conducted seminars during wartime years in the 1940s for music teachers, and they secretly shared their notes with one another. I remember thinking that one day, when I grew up and became old (I don’t know why I always thought about when I would become old), I'd look into it and learn and record the whole piece.
But then when you grow up, you get into a circle of life as a pianist, with concerts, deadlines and travel, and that "one day" never comes. But suddenly the COVID pandemic comes, and you have all the time in the world. I could finally embrace this "one day" from my childhood and dig into the piece. I can say it was the best period of my professional life.
How did you approach reinterpreting such a well-known work?
My love for Bach is probably congenital. For as long as I can remember, his music has been a part of my life, so I listened to his cantatas, oratorios, and passions. They are easier to understand because of their words. As for the instrumental works, you don't have words to lead your understanding of their meaning. Also, most of them were written during the so-called secular period of Bach’s life (WTC, for example, was written when he worked as court musician for Prince Leopold), so they are usually not perceived as sacred music.
I wanted to show another, deeper dimension in Bach’s instrumental music, especially because I share his existential philosophy and personal convictions. I wanted to find connection between the motives in his vocal music and those in the instrumental texture. Then, I let the meaning conveyed by the words define the character of the piece and be the determining factor for all of the purely pianistic, formal elements. I disassembled phrases from vocal music and inserted short motives with words into specific piano motives, both to emphasize this meaning and also to build one semantically coherent story. It was like making a collage, to draw a parallel with visual art. It led me to some radical, from the interpretational tradition point of view, choices, so I am prepared to be criticized, but I think I can afford it.
How did you work with the Calmus Ensemble to achieve this vision?
I reached out to this Leipzig-based quintet after a thorough search on YouTube. The collaboration "clicked" directly on a professional level, but I was also very interested in their perception of the idea itself and all the details, as they were born into, educated and professionally active in this music.
When I came to the first meeting, I had just written everything for one unidentified voice, and after those first days, I was inspired to write for each voice specifically and make each timbre a part of the semantic expression. In my version of WTC, you¨ll find an aria for each of the voices, duets, trios and quartets in different constellations, and the whole ensemble both singing polyphonically and in unison. While we were working on the project, three of the ensemble members changed, so we recorded the album with the "old" Calmus, but perform it now on the concerts with the "new" one.
What do you hope listeners take away from Rethinking the Well-Tempered Clavier?
I probably answer this question with Bach's own words: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” Or “recreation of the spirit,” in other translations. To invite the listeners to immerse themselves into Bach’s spiritual universe (where the music’s aim is the “recreation of the spirit”), is the overall goal of the project. Bach’s faith generated his music. I really hope that my new interpretation of his music can in turn generate faith. We need it in our current times more than ever.
Do you have advice for other musicians wishing to leave their mark on historical compositions?
Oh, the older I get, the less advice I feel that I should give to others. I may just share my general reflection about our post-modernist time and philosophy, especially in artistic fields, where personal understanding and one's own truth weighs more than the collective knowledge of previous generations. I always felt misplaced in our time with this philosophy and very often feel like a dinosaur. But I really believe that one can bring new knowledge and new insights only when knowing the old ones very well. I really hope that my attitude is visible in my project, where I broadened the role of the performer to a more co-creative one. This was the common practice in Bach’s time, but in an entirely different way. In other words, my intention was to make my interpretation historically informed, not because I follow all of the formal performance traditions, but because I am faithful to the spirit of the time.
What are your upcoming projects and events?
Currently, most people, in one way or another, are affected by the terrible and unjust war in Ukraine. Beyond the pure human empathy it evokes, many are also discovering an incredible country they previously knew little about.
We now understand the reason why: For centuries, the Russian motto was that Ukrainian culture should not exist, because Ukraine itself should not exist. Those who refused to become Russian artists were either executed or exiled to Siberia.
Being half Ukrainian myself, I feel this injustice stronger than others, especially when discovering genius works by composers that are not known to the world only because they chose to remain Ukrainians. I feel it is now my duty to make a contribution to filling this enormous gap and present this missing musical layer to listeners. At the same time, it also gives me enormous professional satisfaction. It is an abyss of absolutely fantastic music waiting to be discovered.
Learn more about Natalya Pasichnyk: LINK
Hear her album Rethinking the Well-Tempered Clavier: LINK