His presence is gentle, but austere. Herreweghe is a smoker, a beerdrinker, a lively, humorous European. Though his group has performed St Matthew Passion about 200 times, recorded it twice, and taken part in the complete Bach cantata recordings under Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, to him, Bach's music and one's own religion are different worlds. Our musicians are not concentrated on this philosophical discussion because our task is to perform this music. I personally believe that the music can function as music itself.
Art is one thing and religion is another.
It's not the strongest believers who make the best music. But, at the same time, some conditions that Bach had were necessary for the production of his work. I think with any art the more limits you have the more chance you have to write a good piece of music. Mainly, I think Bach was a very honest Christian and that power in him allowed him to write that quality of cantata. In the past 20 years, the playing of Bach has changed dramatically in Europe.