Well, I used to do some work, but now I never have time and I enjoy working alongside some wonderful scholars who have been generous enough to help me. Most of the musicologists with whom I’ve worked will go straight to heaven after the frustration of the experience! It’s simply that I want complete control over the artistic planning. The reason why the process is slightly artificial is because I’m only actually interested in recreating liturgies or events that enable you to do the best music. There are some services, like Tenebrae, that are inherently very interesting and there are some that are quite boring. A lot of the full rites of the English reformed church, which I did look into, fall into the latter category.

One of the things that particularly interests me about the Bach sacred works is that they were intended as didactic works forming part of the liturgy. I think I’m right in saying that you’re the only person who has attempted a reconstruction of the Lutheran liturgy of Bach’s day [Epiphany Mass; Archiv 457631-2].

Yes, I only did it once, because I thought there was a strong interest in attempting it. The irony is that much of the musicological work for that was done in the 1920s by people like Terry. In many ways there were more complex issues involved in that reconstruction than any other we’ve done—issues to which I really wish people would respond—things like congregational singing, the role of the organ and organ improvisation. If ever there was work that I feel is in progress, it is that recording. You asked me if I did my own research work, but I can’t be an expert in everything. I would regard myself only as a well-read amateur. But I do still look at autographs, because they tell you so much that you cannot get out of any edition, which are often very bad. If more editions were done by musicians rather than academics they would be very different. When we recorded the St. Matthew Passion we played from the original parts in Bach’s hand and the players found it fascinating, because there are details of articulation in the parts that you don’t see in the score.

It’s interesting that I’m always fighting for bigger and bigger forces for Handel, and smaller and smaller forces for Bach, and maybe that’s part of the difference–that Bach’s music is always going to be chamber music. Conversely, there is nothing more fantastic than hearing Handel played by an 80-piece orchestra, which he would have used on occasions.

To my mind you are one of the few conductors who is equally successful with the choral works of both Bach and Handel, who demand very different approaches. What are your feelings on the differing philosophies that lie behind their music?