For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety.
Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again.
When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.
For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner... I go to the piano, and I play preludes and fugues of Bach... It is a sort of benediction on the house.
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
When you play Bach like Chopin, and Chopin like Bach, something good happens.
If you play Bach every day, you are not so alone.
Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.