Harpsichordist Eleonore Bühler-Kestler performs Bach’s English Suites BWV 806-808. This veteran performer reached her 88th birthday in January 2018.

Bühler-Kestler sees Bach’s English Suites as a ‘pars pro toto’ for all music: “These suites want to be figured out”, she says in discussion, “each on its own terms, each individual movement therein. By the listeners and players alike.” That sounds like a great commitment, and it is: without commitment, Bach is unreachable - the Bach of the Inventions, as well as the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas or the Toccatas, all of which Bühler-Kestler has already recorded. Her way to the English Suites, she adds with a smile, was not flanked by flying flags. “I played a selection of them during my studies. To start, I did not feel entirely at home with them. But today, the suites are indispensable to me. The more intensely I worked on them, the more beautiful they became.”

Even now in her older years, Eleonore Bühler-Kestler works tirelessly at “her” Bach and loves the complexity of his music which belies an inner warmth and is a strong support in her life. The process of recording for CD on the harpsichord is somewhat more difficult for her now compared to her younger years but remains the highlight of her work with this music.