Bach Was No Liberal Humanist

In a scene in the 2022 movie Tár, a Juilliard student declares to his professor: “As a BIPOC pan-gender person, I would say Bach’s misogynistic life makes it impossible” to play or conduct the German composer—in part because of the 20 children he obliged his two wives to bear. It is a caricature of woke excess: There has been no serious attempt to cancel Bach for living in the era before birth control. The response from the professor, the film’s protagonist Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), is a caricature of power: She launches into a semi-coherent rant, insulting the student and extolling Bach’s greatness. At one point, the two sit together on a piano bench while Blanchett tries to demonstrate the value of Bach, playing the opening of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and crooning that “there’s a humility in Bach, he’s not pretending he’s certain about anything. Because he knows it’s always the question that involves the listener, and never the answer.” The film is clever, and her arrogance only sharpens the knife. The viewer feels the despair of a closed system—both sides are right on their own terms, and both are loathsome.