The Silence Before Bach

Running time: 102 mins

There was music before there was Johann Sebastian Bach, but what his genius brought to bear was a multitude of magic, the likes of which had never been heard before.

Throughout its history, cinema has more often than not failed to faithfully depict the lives of artists, writers, and musicians. But in veteran Spanish director Pere Portabella?s wise and elegant film, Bach, in many forms and guises, comes vibrantly alive. Whether it?s a tune played passionately on a truck driver?s harmonica, a Goldberg Variation dancing sprightly over the keys of a player piano, or an actor as Bach teaching his son piano, the muscular richness and joyful beauty of the music go straight to the heart and enrapture the soul.

Completely free of contrived bio-pic devices, The Silence Before Bach gloriously soars to those rarefied heights where false drama and clunky exposition surrender to vibrations as true as the rolling waves of a tuning fork. It is a magnificent artistic achievement that reveals what is Bach exists in every single one of us.

Pete Crane


Presented by KKSF and The Castellano Family