>> rose: welcome go the program. we begin this evening with a conversation about russia before the olympics, with stephen sestanovich, gessen, and herszenhorn. >> here we now have russia returning to the world stage than is really important for vladimir putin and for russia and russian whose want to see great games. russian culture will be on display, that is going to be a big part, not just the opening ceremonies but in the whole runup to these olympics, there is a big matter of national pride here. there will be a lot of russian whose will say look, our athletes will be competing in all 15 sports, tell us what kind of games has russia really been able to put on a good show that london did in the summer games. >> rose: and a week ahead to football with cowher and nantz, talk over. >> rose: talk about the

atmospherics when you get to this stage you are one victory away from the super bowl. >> you know, you are so close, and this is the one game that, to me, you know, i lost many of these games, it hurts, because you are so close, and yet you are just coming off having played, so there is no, not a whole lot of buildup to it but the magnification of the game is you you are one game awa from a championship. >> rose: we conclude with john elliott gardiner talking about js bach. >> i think he was a man very much like you and me who has the same preoccupations, the same problems, the same stresses in his life, and my goodness, he had plenty of them when you consider he lost both parents when he was nine and a half, and then his first wife and then ten out of his 20 children before the age of 3 died. i mean, even in an age when infant mortality was rife, that was a lot and he somehow managed

to condense all of that grieving and all that loss into music and give it an incredibly positive consoling spin. >> rose: russia, putin, football and bach, when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. >> additional funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services word wide. >> from o captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> russia is on high alert as it prepares to host the 2014 winter olympics next month, recent terrorist attacks in sochi left at least 34 dead, president obama vladimir putin staked a lot of prestige on the success of the games, western observers are concerned about security issues and the recent record on human rights. >> putin signed a new law banning the spread of homosexual propaganda, yesterday a speech to ambassador the president offered his assurance every athlete will be treated equally, last month he freed members of the punching collective pussy riot along, along with jailed oligarch. >> vladimir putin is david herszenhorn, the moscow correspondent for "the new york times". masha gessen, leza russian american journalist and author of a new book, word will break cement. julia ioffe, sr. editor at the new republic and joining us from washington, stephen sestanovich,

a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations, his next book is maximal list, from truman to obama. welcome all. david, tell me where russia is at this moment. >> just on the other side of europe. >> rose: how long has he been there? >> quite a long time. russia is, as always, an interesting place, we have seen president putin in recent months really reasserting russia's presence on the world stage. >> rose: something he always wanted to do. >> something he always wanted to do and most clearly obvious when president obama was thinking about a missile strike on syria, obviously. russia steps in and foils the plans to disarm the chemical weapons there. that was very dramatic but of course we have seen russia outmaneuver the west in ukraine, inserting their influence there and this is a moment when putin has made clear he intend to restore russia's greatness, its

influence, and the gapes are part of that legacy. >> rose: it is interesting about hip because i talked to other leaders and all say to me, you know, we have a feeling that russia has a strategy and putin has a strategy, and we don't see the united states with a strategy. >> well there are a lot of people that say right now the united states to longer has a russia policy, that, in fact, president obama had held out a last ditch hope of more nuclear cuts as a legacy issue for him, and when that fell apart last spring, followed by edward snowden, of course, receiving temporary assignment in russia that really closed the door and syria opened a new door where there was a transactional relation chicago, what can russia and the u.s. do together on syria, iran, on security about the olympics, but vis-a-vis russia itself, there is little in the way of u.s. policy at the moment. >> rose: where is russia in your moment masha. >> in terms of strategy, i don't think putin has a strategy. >> rose: what does he have? >> well, he has an instinct, and now for the first time really in

the time he has been in office, putin has a philosophy that is where the anti-gay laws come in, he suddenly found this issue gets traction internationally and sort of seeing russia becoming the traditional values capital of the world. >> rose: how do you see it, ruks. >> i would have to agree with masha, i don't think putin has much of a strategy, he is more of a tactician than strategist, he has an instinct and i think creating this russia as a bastion of christian traditional values is an outgrowth of this kind of pseudoneocold war stance that he is basically everything that the west is not, and it doesn't require -- i mean, it doesn't require a strategy to be anti-west, so whatever the u.s. does it is very easy to counter it, to checkmate the u.s., or to kind of steal its thunder or to derail the western strategy. >> rose: stephen? >> you know, i don't know whether putin has a strategy but he has a system, and he is two

years into his third term, and it looks like a very different russia to him from the one that he left when he left the presidency at the end of -- in 2008. at that time, he was politically dominant, he had a growing economy, he had managed to beat back separatism in the north caucuses and has moderately peaceful ethnic relations and now he has an activated political opposition, he has got declining economic growth, he has race riots in moscow. you might argue whether foreign policy takes some of the sting off those

i also think putin is in his last stage in office, but for a dictator who has chosen the most effective way of fighting down protests he has not engaged the opposition, he has not chosen to institute reforms as many other politicians in his position have done. he has chosen to crack down and a crackdown for a dictator guarantees maximum stability for the maximum amount of time. eventually it will fail but it may takes year. >> rose: several specific things now the ukraine, stephen, how he pulled that off? >> he pulled that off by reaching into his bank account and offering $15 billion to bail out president obama yanukovich his former finance minister this we can said, you know, that wasn't such a great deal we did that without conditions and the ukrainians won't be able to pay us back, what is the logic in that? he is ambling that this will pay off for him politically, that it will be a

way of asserting russian power, but it is a gamble. >> rose: and granting asylum to edward snowden? >> i thought that was grossly mishandled. what is the advantage that putin has gotten out of that? i mean talk about, you know, kind of, you know, calling inaudible. he did not calculate, i think, what the long-term consequences were going to be for relations with the united states. >> i think that's right, but i think th the sun kind of fell on their lap and after they forced the plane carrying i think the venezuelan president to land in europe, i think there was, in terms of optics there was not much putin could do, other than to keep snowden in russia, i think in terms of just prestige and saving face he had to keep them there. >> major news on the editorial pages and new york times lauding snowden as a whistle-blower and putin comes across as this defender of a whistle-blower. >> that is exactly what was on

the general, and it is not -- >> rose: the agenda of -- >> putin, part of his the repertoire to think about long-term consequences but i think it played out pretty well for him. there was a press conference organized at the moscow airport with a number of so-called human rights organizations that participated. >> rose: supporting the asylum. >> supporting the asylum, snowden himself said at that he found in russia true supporter of free speech, unlike the united states, and, yes, now what, with snowden's reputation sort of getting more and more varnished, it is looking pretty good. there is also another chance to hit a tactical blow against the u.s., look snowden was potentially facing the death penalty in the u.s. and everybody criticizing russia for human rights offenses but they don't have a death penalty. >> you saw putin at his most confident and asked about a conversation, telephone conversation between the president of the ukraine and the president of lithuania and he said i have no idea what the presidents talked about, why don't you ask our american

friend, maybe they will tell you and you could see just that zinger but keeping on the ukraine there is a lot that is misunderstood there. putin is also thinking about russia's military influence and the black sea fleet is headquartered in the ukraine, this is extremely important and still stuck in his draw the way nato has ex-panned into estonia and if you go back to when the european began the eastern partnership program and in the former soviet space, russia was saying we don't like this idea and europe was so tone-deaf they were running nato exercises in georgia. >> putin had an to go help cypress was a bailout and wasn't willing to put the money on the ground, ukraine -- >> rose: so what about this recent amnesty for pussy riot and the russian billionaire. >> he didn't want to release this billionaire, he chose to let him go a few months early .. hoping that there would be some

pr benefit out of it, but i think it is more than that, a reflection of how much support there is in russia for getting on a different track, putin himself has had to talk a lot about the rule of law, about opposing corruption, rhetorically he is in many ways on the defensive, and he has tried to use the release as well as the amnesty for the other political prisoners as wit ass f showing ruks is a somewhat more normal country, it is unclear yet whether that is going to turn out to be a successful gamble, just as i think his other gambles are not yet certain. >> the first thing i will strongly disagree with, because i don't think there is nothing to do with public opinion in russia, i think it is fairly cynical and transparent move to give something to the west to try to save the olympics, it is literally down to who he is

going to take pictures with in the vip zone during the opening ceremonies, i think it was a snap decision made after president obama announced the make-up of the delegations to the olympics which has no highly placed government officials. >> i am going to disagree with that. i don't think it has much to do with obama, i think it is done for internal consumption, i have heard russians describe putin's tactics as akido strategy, when people come at him he never wants to go into ahead to head battle, he steps back a little bit and comes at them later, so what he -- one of the demands of the opposition was a release of political prisoners, he ignored the opposition for about a year and a half, two years, and now he releases prisoners on his terms, whenever he feels like it, and deprives the opposition of some of their main symbols and things to rally around. >> you know,, i disagree about his motivation but i free about the consequences, and i think he has done something very

important, probably he is unaware of it but he has done something very important by claiming the privilege of changing his mind. up until releasing the billionaire businessman. >> he was, now he suddenly realizes he can say, you know, if i want to put him in prison i will put him in prison of i want to release him i will release him and the only one who makes that decision, that is what he demonstrated with the number of amnesties in december. >> rose: so does he play a role in the future. >> shortly in one of the many exclusive interviews he gave to the russian press afterwards he kind of -- he basically said -- he didn't say he forgave putin but he said he could forgive putin and it was just kind of putting himself on an equal, on an equal plane with putin and he said he could forgive him, so it makes him kind of equal, i they think he is going to bide his time and kind of watch how the foreign trials, his, for his

former oil company go, when he says he is not going to play a role politically he is not being totally truthful but i think time will tell. >> the kremlin has a hostage, his close friend, his business partner is still in jail, he is supposed to be released next year or this year, and the billionaire it has been communicated to him that he already said too much because he has clammed up. >> rose: and stopped talking. >> he apparently is going to stay silent until after his partner is released. >> rose: let's go to the syrian talks that open january 22nd, what is the agenda of vladimir putin and russia and what do they hope to accomplish and why? >> well, the position possess russia is going to be the same one it has been for some time in dealing with syria, and that is show extreme reasonableness while backing president assad, and that has so far been a pretty successful strategy for them, i hate to use that word,

because we know he is a great tactician, but he is -- he is going to this -- the russians are going to this conference with the idea that it is not a threat to president assad. they are, by the way, today they said that they want the iranians to be present at the talks. >> rose: yes. go ahead. i mean they said, and the united states and what did john kerry say in response? >> i haven't seen secretary kerry's response. the american position has been kind of equivocal here but it is po really kind of a distraction from the main issue which is that the american goal was to try to find a formula for talks on syria that would lead to a political transition. something post assad. that is not really particularly viable bowl at this point, given the way the talks are organized, and so they are really about

probably reconsolidating assad's position. he looks stronger today than he did a year ago. >> and you have to acknowledge putin's success on that front. for a long time assad's was a precondition for these talks instead what we see is assad's continued presence is almost a foregone conclusion and instead what you had for quite a long time is russia saying, look, the assad government is ready to come to the table, your job in the west, you were supposed to bring the opposition in, you haven't been able to get them together and what happens to these talks, sooner from russia's perspective they won this before it started. >> i disagree with that a little bit, though. i think the cost for the russians in their regional policy has been real. they have antagonized the most important regional governments with their support of assad, only the syrians find this -- i mean iranians find this consoling. most of the other governments certainly the turks, the

israelis, the saudis find russian policy deeply objectionable, egyptians are a little equivocal so russia has had a kind of success here but it has isolated itself. >> but again that is not thinking about the long-term strategy or the long-term consequences, it doesn't matter, and just like i think these talks, it is perfect for russia, it is process without any results, and the talk about how we are going to talk at the talks is also perfectly russian because in the meantime assad consolidates his position militarily on the ground, he keeps al qaeda gains afoot, gains an ever greater foothold, especially in northern syria which goes to prove putin's point, assad is fighting our common enemy. >> and even ron crockett the ambassador says we need to rethink assad. >> now we do, yes. >> rose: so when we look at russia today and for the moment, what is the biggest threat to hal mird putin and, hal anywhere

putin and to his power. >> economy stagnation looks likely but not economic shock, if things keep deteriorating slowly as they are now, if the crackdown continues, if more and more people leave the country or feel absolutely hopeless staying in the country, his power, his regime gets stronger and, in its own way and what happens when he finally does get worse. >> rose:. >> what we often see is term limbs are good for a politician's legacy, get out while the going is good so he has to calculate he is going to stay so long he will be blamed for something that goes wrong, mainly an economic slowdown but who knows. >> rose: so what will the olympics and what do they have the possibility of doing for russia? and for putin, therefore? >> if it is successful and no terrorist acts and no -- >> keep in mind the broader,

longer history. the last olympics in moscow was in 1980, carter boycott marred that. here we have now russia returning to the world stage and this is really important for vladimir putin but also for russia and for russian whose want to see great games. russian cull picture will be on display, that is going to be a big part, not just the opening ceremonies but has been in the whole runup to these leaches, there is a bigg matter of national pride here and a lot of russian whose will say look, our athletes will be competing in all 15 sports, tell us what kind of games has russia really be able to put on good show like london was able to do with the summer games. >> i think by march we will have forgotten about the impact of the olympics, but i think the -- and on russia's national pride, et cetera, but in terms of how the athletes are, that is going to be the key indicator, because in vancouver in 2010, russia did not take nearly as many medals as they had done in the past and as they counted on and part was

because of massive graft that later investigation unearthed, but that was a huge shock to russian pride, people were talking about it everywhere, cab drivers were groaning about it, they couldn't even win a hockey game, it was a disaster that point. if that happens on russia's home turf, it is going to be bad. >> rose: we do know that there are a couple of places, one syria, one iran, where, and the nuclear issue where russia could play a construct if the role, is it likely to do that? >> david is right in using the word transactional. >> rose: yes. >> the reset was largely transactional, it had a kind of atmospheric framework of good feeling, but that has dissipated as a disagreements have mounted and thousand we are really back to transactions in a bad atmosphere. yes, syria is an area where there is some cooperation.

it seems with not very much had of payoff. iran, the russians are participants in the p 5 plus one, but those are not at the core of the relationship right now. it has to be defined really by something broader, which i think is important to remember here at the end, and that is, russian prestige in europe and the united states is really at a low point in the post soviet period, and that is very much a putin legacy too. this is a deteriorating relationship which has brought little payoff for the united states. a lot of disappointment. >> rose: steven, thank you so much, david, julie, thank you much. we will be right back. stay with us. >> the road to super bowl 48

conclusion on sunday with two highly anticipated conference gapes, patriots against the denver broncos at mile high stadium, the game features two of the nfl's all-time great quarterbacks that would be tom brady and peyton manning, a few hour later when the san francisco 49ers visit century league field against division rival the seattle seahawks, joining me now, bill cowher, former head coach of the pittsburgh steelers where he won a super bowl ring in 2005. he is currently an analyst for the nfl today on cbs. from monterrey, california, jim nantz of cbs sports he is network's lead play by play voice for nfl coverage he is off to denver tomorrow to call the afc title game in denver, i am pleased to have them both. >> i must say, i have never seen such anticipation for a weekend of football. it is an extraordinary, people talking about obviously manning and brady, they are talking

about seattle and the home advantage it might have, coach, tell they how you see these two big games. >> well, i mean, i think it is well documented with brady and manning, a repeat of many but i think you look at these two teams and ironically they met in week 12 and you look at it and, you know, one time ran for 250 yards and another passed for 300-yard but it was denver that ran for 250 and new england that passed for 350, so i think it comes down to me, in these two games, these two teams and their defenses how they are able to handle the other offenses and turnovers and i think that is going to be the determining factor. >> rose: jim, how do you see this game, this talk about the denver game you are going to call? >> well, i think there is a lot of nostalgia because you don't know how many more times you have this rivalry on the field again with brady and manning, it is going to be 15th time, i don't know if it will ever be this big again, the third time

they played for a conference championship and the right to go to the super bowl, it is fascinating to see, though with this quartet of teams we have, you have got this mores you rivalry, probably the greatest single match-up of quarterbacks in terms of a rivalry in the history of the league and the other game you have got the future of the league, two guys that will be around for a long time playing in very big spots with wilson and kaepernick. >> what should we look for, the deb very game, denver game. >> denver game and coach may want to chime in, it is interesting as we get into the post season, the emphasis now has started to shift back to more of a run oriented offense and attack, especially up at new england, which has just gone crazy here the last three weeks with lou garrett at running back, tom brady the last three weeks hasn't even thrown for 200 yards because they haven't asked him to, and they are just mall the opponent running up and down the field so here we go into this game with these two

golden armed quarterbacks and may be a game that is going to be decided on the ground because on the denver side, denver rushed for the most yards against new england in the match-up eight weeks ago, than any team has ever run against a bill belichick team at new england in 233 games, no one has rushed g inches them like they did so we may see marino, and monte ball on their blawl and blunt and it may move away from the quarterbacks winning it with their arms, it might be decided on the ground. >> and i think when you look at the first game that was played in week 12, the one thing that bill belichick has been known to do is make you beat you with what he perceives to be your second option. and so what he does he said you are not going to let peyton manning beat you throwing and peyton manning to me, is he patient enough to be able to take and run the football with no sean marino and that's the thing, they were down 21-0 and new england, that is, early in this game, when they played against denver and turned the ball over the very first three

times, so in this game, the patience of peyton manning, and joyce thomas did not play for papeyton manning in the first game, he could be an x factor, look for tight end julius thomas to be a big factor in the game. >> rose: go to the game between the 49ers and the stay hawks. will. >> well the last two types kaepernick went up there with the 49ers they have been beaten pretty handily the match-up this year use the second week of the season and ugly for the 49ers, the seattle just dominated them and 15 that 12th man they have up there, the crowd, when it gets rollicking and raucous as it does virtually every week but it gets heightened with a super bowl on the line and the right to go to the super bowl that is the biggest thing is how can san tran just handle going in there to a building where they haven't had any success the last couple of years against a physically dominating team? and i will say this, though, the 49ers in week

two and of course they later beat them at candlestick, san francisco did later in the season, so much better san francisco team now than the one that played up there months ago earlier in the season. >> rose: there is real competition between the coaches here too that is not new. >> it is an adversarial relationship i would say, a very fair statement to make, i think the other element of this game too, you talk about russell wilson but the last five weeks he has not looked like the russell wilson we saw in the first year and a half he has really struggled to see the game, to make the plays, we have been accustomed to seeing him make, only has thrown 200 yards one time in the last five games so i think a big key in this game can russell wilson find a way to make some big plays against a very good san francisco defense. >> talk for a moment about the atmospherics when you get to this stage, you are one victory away from the super bowl:, you know, you are so close and this is the one game that to me, you

know, i lost many of these games, and it hurts, because you are so close, and yet you are just coming off having played, so there is not a whole hot of buildup to it but the magnification of the game is you are one game away from a championship, one game away there winning a world championship and so this game in itself is very important, you are playing a team that each one of these guys have played them before, you want something new, but don't forget how you got there, i think sometimes you tend to try to maybe out think yourself, don't forget how you got there, but come up with a little wrinkle that can maybe get you over the hump. >> rose: i will come back to that. some speculate, jim, that if peyton does win the play-off and goes and wins the super bowl he, like john elway, will go away in a bhaiz of glory, you know, i think this would be the perfect script. >> i don't know what he is going to do but i definitely see that being highly considered, after all, two years ago, there was questionable whether he should

even continue playing for his own safety, and for his future. you know, after having these four neck procedures, so i think if he wins it all, the, to write the script, go into that building every day in denver and see the president of that club, john elway and look him in the eye and noel way left on his terms and left with a championship. i think peyton will think about it. >> rose: you did an interview with bill belichick he doesn't do many. >> right. >> rose: tell me about him, what is it we ought to know other than the will to win, the brilliance of strategy, the act that he took a team that had injuries this year and brought them to this place. >> you know, charlie, he is a traditionalist and a purist, he is an old school coach, he has great respect for the game, and i think if you have been around him he is a funny guy. you know, i spent a day with him in 1989, we were both defensive coordinators, i was with kansas city and he was with the giant and we talked about defensive back play and linebacker play and flew up to giant stadium and

got to know each other and talked regularly for a couple of years until he became the head coach in cleveland and i became the head coach in pittsburgh and didn't talk as much, we were a little more adder have sairl but he is a guy that has got great respect for the game, i think he is a guy that he is a great strategist and he, he is an old school coach and you go up there and you don't hear a lot of things you are going to do it his way. >> rose: and be prepared. >> they are going to be prepared, no doubt about that. >> rose: jim before i lose you, tom brady, give me your sense of tom brady and where he is in his own career and what he has brought to the game. >> well, you know, again, we are talking about a guy that if peyton has all the regular season records, basically, you know, if they are with favre, then tom has all of the post season marks, they would both like to have more of what the other one has, in tom's case though if he wins this game on sunday he will become now in two weeks time the first quarterback

to ever start six super bowls, and he is anxious now to get that next win, he won his first three super bowl starts and he has lost his last two to the new york giants, he wants that next one, because so far as history goes and coach cowher put it so well, you really get memorialized more than anything by the number of rings and championships and all of that. >> rose: i will lose you because of satellite, i thank you for joining us, it is always great to have you anywhere within a table i am at, so thank you. >> thank you, charlie, thanks, coach. >> rose: so let's go first to seattle. tell us what to watch for. tell us what will decide that game that you haven't already spoken to. >> i think again for seattle it is russell wilson, he has got, he is going to be the guy to make plays because you won't run the football regularly against the san francisco 49ers, he will have to make some plays through the air and when you look for san francisco and kaepernick playing with a bit of swagger, se playing with great confidence and i think the guy to look for

there is, you know, antoine bolden has had a tremendous off-season, post season again this year, michael crabtree has been the guy this last eight games, he has come back and given them a little bit of the x factor and the guy opposite antoine bolden, crabtree and davis and antoine bolden, those three guys along with kaepernick, i think kaepernick is the key. >> rose: what about the defensive battle in that game? between the patriots and the -- >> you know, charlie, i think the game as much as we talk about the quarterbacks, as jim said i think it will come down to the defense and look at a denver defense, you know, they do not have dickerson and two big defensive linemen who got hurt this season, will not play in this game in the way new england is running the ball, can they stop it? and i think that that will be a big, big key with woodard and tremendous von, those are two line backers that will have to come up big in this game, so i look at that and the

young kid that you take a look at when watching the patriots is -- he is a rookie, from mississippi state, a second round pick, he came off a big game last week and talked about julius thomas coming back for the denver broncos, i want to watch this match-up between collins coming thomas, he rushes, he covers, he is a tremendous athlete, so that is a little match-up to watch on that side of the ball. >> rose: what would it take for you to go back to the coaching ranks? >> you know, i think it is -- i am happy where i am at, charlie, i love my job at cbs and still involved with the game, watching the game, being able to have opinions on it, and keep up with it regularly from afar but it doesn't encompass the lifestyle, it does encompass, it doesn't allow me to do the things i am doing now, i really enjoy the off season and do some traveling and do things i never was able to do before when i was coaching so what would have to change? my mindset because right now i

am very, very -- >> it is not the nature of the offer the it is what is in your own head about the life you want to live. >> exactly, i have been messed and the national football league has been so good to me, and i have so much respect for the game, and, you know, i didn't get out of the game, i left the best job in football, i left on my own accord and not a man that does things spontaneously, i gave ate lot of thought and i knew when i stepped away i could be leaving and stepping down and looking for another phase of my life and i am in that phase of my life. >> rose: what is it you loved about coaching, being a head coach in the national football league? >> i think it is the competition. >> is it. >> which you can never replace that, it is the weekly results, oriented business you are in, the challenge of sustained winning, overcoming adversity. >> rose: every sunday you know whether you won or lost. >> there is always a challenge, whether disgruntled player or an injury that goes down, i really love managing people and working with people, i love the x's and o's of strategize ago game and

making a call on third and 4, decide whether to go for fourth and one, it was -- i enjoyed it, i coached with great passion and my family was my balance, i had great balance in my life, i had family and i had sport. and you don't replace that, and so, you know, but you find other things that keep you involved and that's what i am in the process of doing. >> rose: great to have you here. >> thank you, charlie, appreciate it. >> rose: stay with us. >> this is his most playful, most jazzy and exotic, and buoyant that's what we need to feel because there is something really following-y about this music, see if you can get that through. ♪ >> rose: john elliott gardiner is here, world renowned conductor brought to life a vast variety of classical music in

his four decades career, he is best known for his performance and scholarship of bach, in 2000, 250th anniversary he led a yearlong bach pilgrimage, his lifetime of insight into the composers is in a new book, the book is called bach music in the castle of heaven. i am pleased to have john elliott gardiner back at this table, welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: 18 years i think is a little bit long to come back. so welcome. >> last time it was beethoven. >> rose: yes. but bach is yours. >> she a great hero of mine and has been ever since i was a little boy, but i started off on the wrong foot because i grew up under this portrait, i think you have it there of which is the one that everybody knows, and it gives such a false impression of the man, it gives the impression of a stern humorless pedagogue, and that is not the way the music comes over to me at all. it is multifaceted and full of

the dance, it is full of joy and full of vigor and life. >> rose: i think that someone says he invented how we hear music, the same way that shakespeare invented the english language. >> yes. but not everybody has acknowledged that. it is difficult to think of a single composer in the last 200 years who hasn't been influenced by bach, but at the time he was hardly rated at all, he was rated as an improviser, keyboard specialist and great virtuoso and came under a lot of criticism as far as his music is concerned, that it was too bombastic and too turgid. that is strange to me. i mean, how could it be turgid? it is not turgid but there is an image problem, i think that. >> rose: does this corrupt the image? >> that's what i am trying to do it, it has taken me a long, long time but i have tried to do it from the point of view, two things, recommend, one is the historical context of the man, what kind of atmosphere, what kind of ambiance did he grow up in, and the other thing is

through the music itself, which tells us such a itch story and particularly if you drais and listen to the vocal music, because he every time there was a text he does something special, he does doesn't always collude with the text but clashes with it and that is where the humanity of the man is. >> rose: of all he wrote, what were the favorites. >> i love the two passions, i love the b -- it has to be the b minor. >> rose: right, right, right. >> his whole life, he put everything into that piece and it started off -- >> rose: that's what most people would say. >> yes. but you shouldn't neglect the contadas because they are the bread and butter of his work for three years, a condensed period, he just had been appointed cantor and he worked like crazy producing a 30-minute piece every year in the church year and kept that up for three years, and so diverse in their mood and so diverse in their

composition and they just have so much prodigiously good music that is something i have never said on television before and i am not in an interview before is that really i have no idea how good they were until i did them, i mean when i set off in 2000 i thought there were going to be some does here and some really poor ones but it is not the case, every single monday when you have got the packet of three new contatas for the week, sometimes they were complete masterpieces and sometimes, well it was always one astonishing move movement and sometimes two or three that just made you sit up, extraordinary. >> rose: you said an interesting thing, his music helps us understand what it means to be human. >> tell me more. >> well, this is a guy who if you look in the picture again you see him as being, you know, a card-carrying lutheran, a very serious person who never had any doubts about the really important things in life and he

was totally religious and a fifth evangelist they even called him, i don't think that is the way he was at all, i think he was a man very much like you and me who has the same preoccupations, the same problems, the same stresses in his life, and my goodness, he had plenty of them when you consider that he lost both parents when he was nine and a half and then his first wife and then ten out of his 20 children before the age of 3 died, i mean, even in an age wherein fant mortality was rife, that is a lot, and he somehow managed to, i don't know, condense all of that grieving and all of that loss into music and five it an incredibly positive consoling spin. that is one thing, and the other thing is that, yes, he is a mathematically very precise and very, very intellectual composer, but also a dancer and somebody with a vieve. >> rose: a passionate side. >> yes the passionate side and the good things of lay, we know

he loved drink, we know he loved sex, with all of those children, we know that he got up to all sorts of prairchtion, we know. >> pranks we know he has an angry side. >> rose: did he know how brilliant he was? >> yeah, i guess he did, but he was humble at the same time and he realized, or he certainly said that he was nothing compared to the supreme maker of all things, as it were, but everything is dedicated to him and he had this concept which i am sure he believed in profoundly that music, that he could produce to a level of perfection that was almost the extreme effort of mankind was only a paille reflection of the music we would hear in th the afterlife. >> rose: what focus on this music. >> because of this words, the excitement of the friction, the tension between language and music, and what they do to each other. and it is also the music i know

best, i am afraid, besides being an organist or good keyboard player which i am not i could have written about the variations and all of that kind of stuff and other people can do that much more than i can. >> rose: there have been many books written about him. >> endless books, but this reveals more of his immediate preoccupation, you hear the wring also of his mind as a result of living in the music as i did for certainly for the whole year 2000, dealing with only his music and nobody else's music for a whole year, the trouble is, i am a little bit inconsistent and unfaithful because i adore other composer, i mean i couldn't live without beethoven and mozart and month reallily and without belios to name four, but this is the one you keep coming back, to it pulls you back because the degree of fascination and the degree of complexity in his music is -- >> rose: and is there anything that distinguishes him from everybody you just named?

>> yeah. i think if you take monteverdi. >> contemporary shakespeare who turned the magical form which lasts only two or three minute, three and a half minutes, four minutes at the most into a chain of music that became what we call opera, in the first opera, that is pretty smart, and also that he was the first kind of musical scientist that actually encapsulated the whole gamut of music emotions, fine that is terrific but bach does that as well and he adds to that the intricacies of counter point, in a way you can sum up bach with the symbol of the cross, i mean, this is the or are sobble, horizontal, there is the unfolding of rhythm and of harmony, and of melody, rather. this is the cord sequences and the harmony, that's why they all intersect so it is a christian symbol but also a fantastically strong mathematical symbol of

court point, of intersection, the collision of two planes. >> rose: you said too about him that he was the epitome of a musician who strove all lifelong and finally acquired the habit of perfection and he was a thoroughly imperfect human being. >> well, he was. i mean he picked a fight with a bassoonist when he was 18 and drew his sword and he called him -- which polite program i can't tell you what it means but it is very rude, and he always got into clashes with authority. he kind of, you know, ricocheted between working for a princely dukes and princes and so on, the courts and he didn't always have a very favorable time there and then working for municipalities for civil servants and town councils and that was even more frustrating because they gave him a hard time and they couldn't understand what his music was about. >> rose: i think it comes from your documentary, the bbc

documentary but here it is, you can conducting a rehearsal of john's passion. >> it was his first passion oratory, the neck class of i don't know tata's, retelling of the story of jesus's arrest, trial and crucifixion, there have been passions before but nothing so radical, so complex or as ambitious at bach's john's passion. >> he ingenious blends choral wrieg into thrilling amalgam, story telling and drama. >> may i have the cello bass please, bow one. that is okay. now, can we just add the violins, please. >> good. that's it. right. thank you. adjust flutes and please.

>> it is like nails being pounded into flesh. >> in this opening chorus, he does something which none of the other people have done, which is to set up a huge dynamic tension between this turbulence in the orchestra going on and this tremendous acclimation of christ, the majesty. >> rose: you said earlier he was the master of counter point, explain that to me. >> well, it is going back to this business of the cross. >> rose: i know. that's why i said. >> it is to do with how intersecting planes of sound come together and make a weave together. i mean if you are ride writing a four part choral, you have four lines and i did this with my

teacher back in the day who was a ferocious task master and she wasn't concerned whether you got the harmony right, she would assume you got the harmony right otherwise you wouldn't be in class but he was interested in the counterpart, how beautiful can you make each individual lynn and make the intersection of those lines really, really satisfying to the eye and to the ear, that is the key to it. >> rose: she has a lot of proteges doesn't she? >> oh, yes, i came right at the end, she was ancient and mind practically when i arrived but but all of this was here. >> rose: and a genius for teaching? >> genius at teaching and she was tough. i mean, oh. she was very, very tough but inspirational. >> rose: did you go to paris for her? >> yes, i won a french government scholarship to paris and i don't know why she took me but she did and bless her heart. >> rose: a year or -- >> no, i had two years in paris and -- she left me her collection, she must have guessed somehow i was going to end up doing bach she left me her collection of transcriptions of bach contat a's she wrote out

herself. >> rose: why do you think she did it because you would do what you did and you had an appreciation and you would somehow -- >> who knows, she was pretty rude and harsh to me, she said to me. >> rose: harsh? what would she do? >> she would say -- you are a tragedy without name. how do you take that? >> rose: a tragedy without name? >> exactly. >> rose: and would you wither or stand back and say -- >> mixture of withering and feeling so angry i just wanted to -- but she was right, up in class and, you know, demean you, pull you right down. >> rose: because she believed that would make you better? a. >> and sometimes she was right and sometimes she miscalculated some of her pupils found it really. >> rose: it paid to survive? >> yes. and some of the people who went on and stayed and stayed and stayed they just became like sort of dried up historics. >> husks and i couldn't leave at two years i needed to get my

hands on the music, rather than doing harmony and counter point. >> rose: bach was a teacher. >> he was and a brilliant teacher, must have been, because he, i mean look at his sons, he looked after his sons, he was a phenomenal teacher of harmony and counter point, but the thing tsh and there is a lovely story about him and emanuel his second son when listening to somebody else performing, a prelude in fugue. >> that is the first. >> here is the second subject, now how is it going to combine the two? i bet you they will do it this way and whispers to him and of course he hears you and i told you so and gives him a great nudge in the ribs. i mean, he is amazing. >> rose: you were talking about and conducting the matthew passion. here it is. >> the emotional center of the matthew passion is -- peter's plea for forgiveness, having denied his christ. >> in comes the violin announcing, and the violin with

no words at all can convey in a way that the human voice could not convey this concentration of lamentation, of free, of contrition, of iter abject horror in a way, and yet taking on to a spiritual level because the voice line of the violin becomes an agency of compassion and forgiveness, and that is before the singer sung a note. ♪ >>

>> rose: suppose you could call up bach, beethoven, mozart, shakespeare, what is your first call? >> am i on the right track? >> rose: really? >> yeah. have i got it completely wrong? or is this -- >> rose: did you hear this music this way? have i understood the symbols on the page, what you have written, if you have written about those pieces, you know, am i on the right track? because you are operating on gut instinct and intuition and, you know,

whatever musicality you can muster, it is not easy. >> of course, i mean, look, there are some that would be fun to have a couple of beers with, hayden would have been a wonderful fellow to come and talk to. >> rose: more fun? >> more fun, bach would have been, you would have had to won his trust, it wouldn't be easy at all. >> rose: beethoven? beethoven? >> beethoven would be impossible to to start with, he couldn't hear you because he is deaf as a post. >> rose: when did he become deaf. >> gradually devon from 18, three, 1804, to his death. he is desperate and you have to speak through an ear trumpet and it would have been ghastly but get him in the right mood and he would have been amazing, just such -- >> rose: and mozart would be what? >> mozart would have been, you know, kind of cheeky, he could be clowning around and horsing around, he would, and that's why you wouldn't get close to the music, all we know when it comes to amadeus film, you don't get a feeling of really who the genius

is, the sublime, celestial genius mozart was in his music from the sort of cheeky monkey he was in his life, and that's in a way what i am trying to do in this book. i have to say also that i think has done a fantastic job, i can't believe how beautiful, look at the cover, and the illustrations in it are just so -- he have got a genius called romeo or somebody or other who managed to steer through all of these illustrations, that one, amazing, that is the castle of heaven with the organ at the top. and that is so sharp and you you dn't find that with other publishers. i am just thrilled by the ultimate response to it. the response to it has been far greater than i had any idea about the people who haven't read about bach before said, oh, gosh, that is really interesting and he is more human than we suspected. >> rose: congratulations. >> thank you. >> rose: john elliott gardiner, bach, music in the castle of heaven. thank you for joining us.

see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

the following production was produced in high definition. ♪ and their buns are something i have yet to find anywhere else. >> 'cause i'm not inviting you to my house for dinner. >> breaded and fried and gooey and lovely. >> in the words of arnold schwarzenegger, i'll be back! >> you've heard of connoisseur. i'm a common-sewer! >> they knew i had to ward off some vampires or something. >> let's talk desserts, gentlemen, 'cause i see you