Presence Is More Than Memory takes its point of departure from Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue, a work whose extraordinary capacity for transformation has long fascinated me.

Rather than engaging with Bach through quotation or stylistic imitation, the piece explores the possibility that a musical idea can remain present across time, continuing to generate new forms and relationships long after its original historical context has disappeared. Certain intervallic structures and contrapuntal tendencies derived from Bach’s music act as latent forces within the work, shaping its development without ever appearing as explicit references.

The title reflects this perspective. Memory implies distance: something belonging to the past, recalled from afar. Presence, on the other hand, suggests something active, immediate, and capable of acting upon the present. In this sense, Bach is not treated as an historical object, but as a living source of energy and imagination.

The musical discourse unfolds through processes of transformation, proliferation, and reconfiguration. Materials continuously evolve, preserving traces of their origin while acquiring new identities. What emerges is not a reconstruction of the past, but a dialogue with something that remains alive within it.

Here you can find a nice and detailed interview I’ve done with Christoph Lang