The most unexpected instrument in the film is the ukulele. Jake Shimabukuro is seen playing one of Bach's Two-Part Inventions outdoors, as birds provide a subtle counterpoint. "Bach has so many of these cool melodic lines," Shimabukuro says.
Edgar Meyer, the celebrated bassist who traverses bluegrass, jazz and classical with equal commitment, performs a cello transcription. "It's fun trying to make it happen on a bass," he says. "My father [played] Bach's music ... on Sunday mornings before we'd go to church. He used to say, 'That's what it's all about.' Being involved with Bach's music gives me as much pleasure as anything I can think of."
That's a recurring motif of the film footage. Cellist Zuill Bailey, for example, shot in Baltimore's elegant Basilica of the Assumption, says that playing Bach transports him "to a place of wonderment."
There are upbeat moments - Bobby McFerrin vividly sings florid Bach lines and asks: "How can you not dance to that?" - and moments of pathos. Brazilian pianist Joao Carlos Martins, whose two hands were severely damaged, manages to articulate a Bach prelude using little more than his thumbs. "This was the inspiration of Bach in my life. He kept me alive," Martins says, his voice breaking.
Among the offbeat shoots is one of Dr. Charles Limb at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine conducting a brain scan of pianist John Bayless improvising on a tiny keyboard to show the mental process that Bach, a famed improviser, experienced.
As he considers how to piece all of these components together, Lawrence maintains the same enthusiasm for the project he had when it started, an enthusiasm that helps explain how he got so many noted people to be in the film. "A couple of artists turned down invitations when they learned there was no pay," he says. At least one reconsidered after learning who else had agreed to participate gratis.
Funding is a constant issue; the project has cost $100,000 so far. Lawrence has had some success attracting money from individuals and foundations (the Handel Choir of Baltimore is the film's nonprofit sponsor), but he is always on the lookout for more support - financial or moral. The same day he heard that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, was a major Bach advocate, the filmmaker contacted the congressman's office.
"This project started with only one thing - a love for Bach," Lawrence says. "Every shoot is better than the last one. I've been very lucky. But I could very well fall on my face."
Whatever happens with the film, Lawrence's Bach fever won't likely subside. "For a whole year, I've played Bach on the piano every night for an hour," he says. To demonstrate one cool December evening, he sits at the Yamaha upright in his home and starts on the aria that begins the Goldberg Variations.
Two measures in he stops, not because it's too difficult, but simply too awesome. "Isn't it unbelievable," he says, "that someone could write that?"
michael lawrence
Occupation: filmmaker
Born: Indianapolis
Age: 63
Living in: Dundalk, with his wife, Johanna
How he spent one summer as a teenager: Banjo player in The Stephen Foster Story in Bardstown, Ky.
Education: Peabody Conservatory, where he studied guitar
How he spent the '60s : Living with his wife on the organic Koinonia commune in Baltimore County
