PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID KORNFELD
THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Doing things by halves is not for Robert von Bahr. Even if it were, the remaining achievements of his 80 years would still be enough to fill a book. His story opens in an age when it was possible for a music student, with a little help from Sweden’s leading symphony orchestra, to learn the art of making records by trial and error, and embraces the brave new world of instant online access to countless classical albums. And it contains telling details – about how the director of BIS Records still packs customer orders, how he replies to every pitch, and how he has earned a matchless reputation for honesty and integrity since launching his company over half a century ago.
‘Music keeps me young at heart,’ he says when we speak via Zoom. Von Bahr is seated at his desk in the eco-home he created near Stockholm. (The building, like its owner, is self-sufficient in energy.) While clearly proud of his successes, he repeatedly steers our conversation back to the artistry and industry of the musicians and colleagues who have helped raise BIS to near-sacred status among classical record connoisseurs. News of the company’s sale to Platoon, Apple Music’s music services arm, broke shortly before our interview. The deal, observes the label’s founder, guarantees its future. ‘I don’t want BIS to disappear. None of my seven children would be willing to take it over. I’m 80, and one day the Grim Reaper is going to knock at the door. Unless I did something, I felt BIS would sink without a trace. When the opportunity came to be part of Apple, with its resources and interest in getting into the classical music game, it was a pretty easy decision. They have distribution possibilities that I could only dream of. I think our union with a high-tech company is a game-changer.’
Von Bahr views retirement as a postmortem condition. He plans to continue making records for as long as fate permits, including with young talents such as pianists Alexandre Kantorow and Haochen Zhang, violinist Johan Dalene and the Chiaroscuro Quartet. ‘If we sniff that an artist really has something to say, we stick with them,’ he confides. ‘There has to be something that excites us, even if we can’t say why. I only care if they make me sit up and take notice.’
This ‘a-ha’ response led von Bahr to record JS Bach’s complete sacred cantatas with an unknown Japanese early music ensemble; take on Paul Wee, a practising barrister, to record fearfully difficult piano work
