For Édouard Ferlet, Bach is not simply repertoire to be performed: it is also a framework with which jazz can converse. A pianist and composer, he has been exploring the intersections between classical music and improvisation for several years. The special edition of “Le Bach du dimanche”, which welcomes him for its 400th instalment, offers an entry point into this dialogue.
An old work, a present-day gesture
Improvising on Bach does not simply mean adding notes to a score. The challenge is to bring two ways of building music together: on the one hand, written works whose architecture guides their interpretation; on the other, a practice in which the musician invents in the moment. The link between the two depends on the performer’s choices: what they retain of the form, what they transform and how much room they leave for the unexpected.
Ferlet’s career makes this question central rather than incidental. He discovers jazz in childhood, then studies jazz composition at Berklee College of Music, graduating in 1992. Back in France, he works in audiovisual media and joins the Paris jazz scene. In 1999, he co-founds the Trio Viret with double bassist Jean-Philippe Viret and drummer Antoine Banville. The group becomes one of his main spaces for experimentation.
“Think Bach”, a long-running encounter
His album “Think Bach”, released in 2012, is devoted to the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The title suggests less a simple transcription than a way of taking the composer’s music as material for reflection. The project is part of a broader exploration, also pursued in a duo with harpsichordist Violaine Cochard, in which classical and jazz traditions meet without merging.
This distinction matters. The harpsichord and the piano do not occupy the same place in their respective repertoires, and jazz cannot be reduced to a freedom set against written music. Improvisation, too, calls for reference points, attentiveness to others and an organisation of musical discourse. For a pianist, working from Bach can therefore bring out the tensions between structure and invention rather than erase them.
The France Musique page lists excerpts accompanying the programme entitled “Je me souviens plus”, a duo with Violaine Cochard, and “Agnus Dei”, from “Think Bach”. These reference points offer a way into two facets of his career: collaboration with a harpsichordist and work centred on Bach.
From repertoire to a new album
Ferlet continues this exploration with “Köln Variations”, announced by the label Mélisse for 6 November 2026. The project takes Keith Jarrett’s “Köln Concert”, recorded live in 1975, as its point of reference. The press kit from Accent Presse describes a set-up pairing the musician’s piano with a “pianoïd”, presented as an instrument equipped with artificial intelligence.
The connection with Bach should not suggest that the two projects are based on the same material. “Think Bach” starts from the work of the Baroque composer; “Köln Variations” turns to an iconic Jarrett improvisation and to a dialogue between the pianist and his device. In both cases, the question running through Ferlet’s work is one of the rules of the game: can music retain a recognisable form while leaving room for an unforeseen response?
This is a fruitful way into his career. Rather than setting fidelity to the repertoire against jazz freedom, Ferlet chooses projects in which each puts the other to the test. The 400th edition of “Le Bach du dimanche” thus forms part of an ongoing exploration linking composition, performance and improvisation without reducing Bach to a mere pretext.
References
- France Musique, “Le Bach du dimanche : 400e émission avec le pianiste Edouard Ferlet”
- Accent Presse, “Edouard Ferlet – Köln Variations”
A pianist’s hands at the Punta del Este International Jazz Festival. Illustrative photograph, unrelated to an Édouard Ferlet concert.
Credit: Jimmy Baikovicius from Montevideo, Uruguay — Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 2.0.
