But let’s get back to what Bach regarded as unimportant.

Even if, in contrast to Bach, you regard the sound colour, volume, dynamics etc. as so enormously important – as many experts do nowadays – then, in principle, today’s electronics also offer much more detailed possibilities for design.

With electronic means, e.g., you can let the sound of a violin develop in fluid change into the sound of a flute, and then into the sound of a trombone etc., and the electronic means will let you play much more loudly, as well as much more quietly than a musician could ever play on his orchestra instrument.

In this respect, too, electronics only have benefits.

But the most important reason why I mainly use electronic means, is that they enable me, as my own and truly authentic interpreter, to reproduce the music I hear inside almost faithful in every rhythmical and tonal detail – work that otherwise would take months of communicating with the individual interpreters, and, due to the limitations of the instrument, and the changing state of health/mind of the musician during each performance, would still be restricted.

JOURNALIST: Let’s return to your view of a classical composer. You see yourself as a composer in the tradition of the great classical composers – as you have described in one of your books. What, in your opinion, is the difference between your work and the creations of those composers?

PETER HÜBNER: In one of the books you have mentioned “Natural Music Creation”, I have described that it is one and the same creative power which let the great testimonies of musical ethics develop in Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and all the other masters of music.^Beethoven

None of these tone creators claimed that he made the music, but they experienced themselves to be in the service of God – like Bach, or in the service of the truth and human dignity – like Beethoven, or in the service of nature – as I would like to express it today.

And the popularity of their work among millions of people, even after centuries, should make it clear to the person who doesn’t experience the source of their inspiration in himself, that they were not hypo-critical.^Goethe

Nevertheless, time brings about differences within the naturally created compositions.

The classical tone creators also always saw their work in relation to the necessities of time and circumstances, and so the music of the individual composers appear to us different in their statement.

Even so, it is clear to a composer who is aware on the level of life from which music develops, that it is one and the same musical power which inspired and guided all these great human beings.

I think that my situation nowadays may differ from my models in two outward things at best.

For one thing, in our times of general democratisation, nature has presented me with a happier outward situation of free and independent musical activity than most of those before me.

I am free and independent, my music reaches its fans, and they, in return, provide me with sufficient financial support by buying my CDs, that I am able to follow my human and musical objectives.

For instance, I needn’t be liked by any sort of prince, on whose hand-outs I must survive, like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, or I needn’t let myself be harassed by petty-minded sextons who keep me and my family at bay with a miserable salary – like Bach.

Neither need I write music for stupid opera texts, like Mozart or Verdi, who want to impress a superficial audience with jealousy, murder and bribery scenes, and who then pay enough admission charges.