Power of Bach's music calms pianist through turbulent times
Preparing for her sold-out Hong Kong debut, 65-year-old musician says the great German composer's works have led her through life
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach is as resilient as water and delivers both tranquillity and power, a pre-eminent pianist has said.
Zhu Xiaomei, a Shanghai-born Bach interpreter par excellence, has used the inspiration she gets from playing the music of the great German composer to get her through turbulent times.
"It was destiny in the way I was attracted to Bach's music," the Paris-based pianist said on the eve of her sold-out Hong Kong debut tomorrow.
"It was like running into an old friend when I first heard Bach such as that famous tune from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, and I always put his music at the end of my daily six-hour practice, saving the best for last," the 65-year-old said, recalling her teenage years at the Beijing Central Conservatory.
But the music stopped during the Cultural Revolution when Western classical music was branded as decadent art. In 1969, Zhu and everybody at the conservatory was sent to Zhangjiakou , a freezing cold area north of the Great Wall in Hebei Province , to be re-educated through labour.
"To stay warm, my piano teacher suggested I play Bach's fugue so that my fingers would do a lot of stretching to generate body heat. I did that for five years," she laughed.
A decade later she turned to Bach again.