The New York Times konkluderte for noen år tilbake med Bach som tidenes største komponist. Tar vi inn popularitet basert på Google-treff slår Bach Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Beatles, Miles Davis, Beethoven og Mozart - de fleste med god margin.

Noen ulike dører inn Bachs jazzy modernitet fra et knippe utøvere:

Sarabande fra Partita no 6 - Angela Hewitt

"A brief Air, with a surprising second ending, precedes the Sarabande—surely one of Bach's greatest creations. At first sight (or upon first hearing) this movement can seem baffling. It takes time to discover the framework beneath the profusion of notes, and to realize its emotional power. For me Bach is alone in this Sarabande—alone in communion with his maker in a dialogue that is at once sorrowful, hopeful, passionate, and at times exalted (the marvellous, brief modulations into major keys in bars 7, 8 and 30 interrupt the darkness with flashes of light). To go from deep inside Bach's inner world (and therefore our own) straight into the Tempo di Gavotta can come as a bit of a shock, but we can only marvel at how Bach immediately begins to dance—even in a minor key."

- Angela Hewitt

Fra en enkel opptakt i e-moll til en rik a-moll 9 akkord - som åpner et lydlandskap inn i et moderne og følsomt kraftfelt i menneskets sjelsliv:

Bach's music is the most important for my life. Bach is an entire musical, yet human, worldview. The music must be spiritual, not physical. It is the content of Bach's music that intrigues me so.

- András Schiff

Sarabande fra Partita no 6 - Glenn Gould

Sarabande fra Partita no 6 - András Schiff

Et klipp fra Schiff´s lecture på Sarabanden: 

We bought his recordings whenever a new LP came out. I remember his Brahms, his Strauss, and of course his Bach. We would listen to his Bach discs – my parents were musicians too – and my dad would say: "That's a ridiculous tempo. What's he playing it like that for?" (By and large, if it was a slow piece, he would play it too fast, and vice versa.) But there was always something to admire. He was a wonderful pianist, and the way he played Bach was a sensation at the time. It was totally fearless, there's a ferocity, a youthful exuberance and energy in his playing. But I have never imitated him. I never wanted to come out like a bad copy of Glenn Gould.

- Angela Hewitt

I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. 
I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that — its humanity.

- Glenn Gould

Sarabande fra Partita no 6 - Maria Cefalà

The story of the 30-year-old pianist Maria Cefalà is a story of rebirth: graduated in piano at 20, when her career was ready to take off a nerve inflammation prevented her from playing for three years. Was this the end? Not at all, because when everything seems to lead to giving up the keyboard in favour of teaching, Ukrainian piano world icon Anna Kravtchenko discovers and encourages Maria to develop her piano work, defining her "the Italian way" to Bach. With their relationship the "Discovering Bach" project finally takes shape, and its first steps are a clear example of Maria's unorthodox path: a tour in 5 Italian prisons (San Vittore in Milan, Torre del Gallo in Pavia, Canton Mombello in Brescia, Poggioreale in Naples, Carcere dei Piccolini a Vigevano) in which Maria finds her first audience to whom she tells with irony the story of relinquishment and rebirth of a music lover who doesn't belong to any systems, and also of Bach's life, adding a human touch to the timeless monument, a lot more necessary than any other way of presenting him. Finally also the discographical project is accomplished with the recording which took place in the teatro Besostri in Mede (Pv).

The artwork has been created specifically for this album by American artist Neal Peterson, and it's the graphic elaboration of a Bach's autograph score.