Masaaki Suzuki.... founder-director of Bach Collegium Japan
Publicity pictures of Masaaki Suzuki show a sage-like figure, with snow-white beard and shoulder-length hair, smiling slightly as if sharing a private joke with Bach himself. But there’s nothing other-worldly about this practical, passionate musician. Directing Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) in the St John Passion at a packed BBC Prom this summer, Suzuki was mesmerising – a quicksilver figure coaxing bright, precise rhythms from his small ensemble.
He was in good form after a shoulder injury earlier in the year – ‘not a conductor’s injury; I fell on the station of Paris’s Gare du Nord and one of my tendons broke. Now it’s finally healed, and I was so happy to be able to conduct quite freely for the St John Passion.’ He was also delighted with his reception at the Royal Albert Hall. ‘They were quiet, concentrating, like a Japanese audience! When we finished, I turned around, and people were already standing. A standing ovation! That’s really, really wonderful.’
Malakai Suzuki and his son Masato... a beautiful conducting partnership
We meet the following day in Japan House’s library together with his son Masato, principal conductor of BCJ. The two have worked together for many years – Masato says he was assisting his father by pulling out organ stops in recitals at the age of six or seven. His father did not teach him formally (‘I was a bad father!’ admits Masaaki), but in a household full of keyboards and Bach, Masato absorbed his musical skills.
Like his father, he studied organ, harpsichord, composing and conducting at Tokyo University of the Arts and in the Netherlands, and now has a successful conducting career in Japan. He has played harpsichord and organ continuo with BCJ for some years and is making his European debut as conductor of BCJ on a seven-city Europe Grand Tour in January.
Bach Collegium Japan... celebrating 35 years
2025 is a busy year for BCJ, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary and the 300th jubilee of the choral cantatas, with a ten-concert series in Japan, spread across two years. Masaaki, who is still BCJ’s music director, and Masato will share conducting duties. Is there conflict over who will conduct which cantata? ‘Yes, we are fighting each other,’ jokes Masaaki – but only about minor matters.
They divide BCJ projects over the year; Masato is leading a Beethoven project but also sharing the cantata concerts. ‘Like in Kabuki, I’m not creating a totally different character to him,’ says Masato. ‘We actually work together and create the stage together. I think our audience in Japan are very accepting of our collaboration; we’re not like a normal symphony orchestra.’
Creating a world-class Bach ensemble in Japan...
It’s still remarkable that Masaaki Suzuki, born in 20th-century Japan, has created a world-class ensemble specialising in Bach, a composer steeped in 17th-century Lutheran traditions. But Suzuki was brought up in the Japanese Reformed Church in Kobe, where he was playing the organ professionally at 12. He is familiar with Bach’s Christian values and religious practice. ‘Composing and performing cantatas for Bach was just like needing to eat rice or bread every day – it was the job of a church musician.’
Masaaki Suzuki and Bach... a lifelong relationship
Suzuki’s relationship with the cantatas started at university in Tokyo. ‘I studied composing and organ, and as a sort of side job I played a lot of cantatas with my friends and colleagues. We had a student club which gathered every Friday evening to perform only Bach’s church cantatas, fanatically!’ (Masato was also conductor of the club in his university years.) ‘Cantata 78 was the first for which I played harpsichord,’ says Masaaki. ‘I remember the leader Michio Kobayashi, a well-known pianist who had studied in Detmold, saying, “You must play the harpsichord in this way”, and he touched my hand to show me, “this carefully, this softly”. And I got goosebumps.’
Suzuki went on to study keyboard playing at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. When he returned to Kobe, as a professor in 1985, it was the 300th jubilee of Bach’s birth. ‘I wanted to celebrate it in Japan too, so I assembled a small choir, just seven or eight singers including my wife, and we put on some concerts of cantatas and organ works. That was my starting point.’
Bach and Japan... a love affair that has grown and grown
Moving to Tokyo University in 1990 Masaaki was asked to give the inauguration concert for the new concert hall in Osaka. ‘It was good motivation to expand the ensemble.’ In 1992 Bach Collegium Japan started regular concert series in Tokyo and Kobe. At first Suzuki had to hand-pick singers. ‘When we were first doing auditions, there were not so many people focussing on Bach. But now the situation is different. We have Japanese and international singers wanting to join us.’ Masato adds, ‘We held big auditions last month in Japan and hundreds of singers came from all over the world, just to sing a maximum of three minutes!’
Is it important to maintain a majority of Japanese musicians in BCJ? ‘Of course, if you have no Japanese it looks a little funny,’ says Masaaki. ‘But for this kind of international tour, I like to mingle Japanese with international musicians to create friendships and collaborations, which is much more stimulating for us. For the summer tour there were several European soloists as well as two Japanese soloists. But personally, I don’t care what nationality you are!’ The small, nimble choir numbers about 16 for cantata concerts, but can increase to 30 or 40 when BCJ performs later repertoire, such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah or Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem.
Bach Collegium Japan... hundreds of recordings over three decades
Their exclusive partnership with the Swedish label BIS has lasted over three decades and resulted in literally hundreds of recordings, including the award-winning church cantata series which ended in 2014 with the 55th volume. Other critically acclaimed recordings include a ten-disc set of the complete secular cantatas and all the major choral works, now collected in a 78-volume set of The Complete Vocal Works.
Suzuki remembers the first few recording sessions as quite tricky. ‘In 1995, the year of the big earthquake around Kobe, we started recording the cantata series. It took a few sessions to find a way of working with BIS – the boss, Robert von Bahr, had a very strong personality! Over time they have developed a system, and we have also learnt how to make a recording session more efficient. It’s a great pleasure and it’s a very important relationship for both of us.’
Masaaki Suzuki... recording every single Bach work
Suzuki didn’t start with a plan to record every single work of Bach. ‘I just wanted to keep going, performing every one of the 100 cantatas. One third of Bach’s work has been lost; it should be possible to find all the missing cantatas, but probably not now.’ Masato has reconstructed some of the unpublished manuscripts. ‘The biggest one I did was Cantata 190, the New Year cantata, when I was still at university,’ he says. ‘We know there were three trumpets, three oboes and timpani but the material we have from the original source is only two violin parts and choir. The rest is missing – probably his son sold it!’
Turing 70 and looking to the future...
Suzuki has just turned 70, and his schedule is still as full as ever with guest conducting dates and BCJ concert series and tours. ‘My desire is to keep going with this ensemble, and that they keep performing Bach’s music. That’s why I’m very lucky to have a son like Masato,’ he says proudly. He also looks forward to doing more solo playing. He released a disc of organ pieces to dazzling reviews in 2015, and two more since, but the complete organ cycle was overtaken by the 20-year complete harpsichord works cycle.
He sees no conflict between the demands of conducting and playing Bach’s music. ‘The structure is similar in organ and vocal works. Now a subject from the tenor, now from the soprano – it’s exactly the same as a fugue. Bach is so beautifully integrated.’ Suzuki has introduced composers other than Bach to BCJ. ‘Church music in the 19th century is interesting, for instance: Mendelssohn had a wonderful tradition from Bach, and we have just recorded Symphony No. 2, the “Lobgesang”. Before Bach, we had a Buxtehude project that Masato conducted, and we have recorded Schütz and Monteverdi. Sometimes we are trying to keep the balance between earlier and later, but Bach is always central.’
After years spent thinking about Bach, parsing every note and shaping every interpretation, does Suzuki feel close to the man himself? ‘No, no one can really know Bach. Of course, for us he is a genius but he probably thought of himself just as a craftsman making music every Sunday.’ It is music that has endured for 300 years and, thanks to Masaaki Suzuki, will still be listened to in centuries to come.
