WHEN GENIUS MEETS POWER

Brian Cox’s magnificent Bach reminds us that
kings disappear while great music endures

What happens when artistic genius meets absolute power? The Score, written by Oliver Cotton and directed by Trevor Nunn, brings Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great face to face in a compelling clash between a king accustomed to being obeyed and an artist unwilling to compromise his convictions. At the center of it all is Brian Cox, whose Bach is not simply a musical genius, but a deeply human man confronting power, mortality and the question of what an artist ultimately leaves behind.

This is a jewel-box of a production. Robert Jones’s set and costume designs create two distinctly different worlds, moving seamlessly between the royal court in Potsdam and Bach’s homespun Leipzig. Rotating scenery makes the transitions almost magical, while the rich costumes, elaborate wigs and courtly splendor of Potsdam contrast beautifully with the simpler, more intimate feel of Leipzig. The visual transformation reinforces the distance between Frederick’s world of privilege and Bach’s more modest life.

The play imagines Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1747 encounter with Frederick the Great of Prussia, bringing together two men who possess very different kinds of power. Frederick has a kingdom, an army and a court eager to please him. Bach has his music and the conviction that it answers to something greater than a king.

As Bach, Cox brings an extraordinary physical and vocal presence to the stage. This is not the serene, almost saintly Bach we might imagine from portraits or history books. Here is a man who is tired, proud, irascible, vulnerable, deeply religious and fiercely protective of his music. Cox’s Bach can be blustery and funny, particularly when irritated by the foolishness of others, but there is vulnerability beneath the gruff exterior. He is an aging artist conscious of mortality and of what may remain after him. Cox makes that awareness part of the performance without ever turning Bach into a monument. He is magnificent.

Frederick, played by Stephen Hagan, is elegant, cultivated and accustomed to getting what he wants. Hagan gives the king an appealing charm that makes his authority even more complicated. Frederick genuinely admires Bach’s genius, but admiration does not necessarily mean understanding. He wants the composer to perform for him, to respond to his challenge, to enter his world.

But Frederick is not simply a cultured king and patron of the arts. He is also a military ruler whose campaigns have brought violence and suffering to those caught in his wars. That tension gives The Score a deeper moral dimension: how does an artist create under the shadow of tyranny, particularly when the person commanding the room is responsible for suffering beyond it? And how can an artist accept the patronage of power without surrendering his own moral compass?

Nunn approaches the material with an understanding of how much can be communicated through stillness. The tension often comes simply from watching these men occupy the same space.

Peter de Jersey’s Voltaire is wonderfully foppish, charming his way between royalty and artist. He ingratiates himself with Frederick while being equally eager to win Bach’s favor, deftly playing both sides of the fence. His polished wit and calculated charm offer a humorous contrast to Bach’s stubborn integrity and Frederick’s authority.

Nicole Ansari-Cox, Cox’s real-life wife, gives Anna Bach a grounded presence that opens a window onto the composer’s domestic life. Jamie Wilkes, as Bach’s son Carl, adds another dimension: the complicated relationship between an extraordinary father and a son struggling to establish an artistic identity beneath that enormous shadow.

And then there is Bach’s music. The king’s musical challenge, which ultimately gives rise to Bach’s The Musical Offering, allows the play to make its argument in music as well as words. Sophie Cotton’s sound design weaves recorded excerpts of Bach’s keyboard works with live music performed onstage, allowing his music to emerge throughout the play in brief passages and recurring themes. A few phrases can accomplish what pages of philosophical dialogue cannot. His compositions contain structure and emotion, discipline and freedom, intellect and spirituality. They make the argument for his genius far more eloquently than anyone onstage can.

Sitting in the theater, I found myself thinking less about 1747 than about every artist who has had to negotiate with a patron, an institution or someone holding the purse strings. The Score reminds us that artistic freedom has always come with a price.

Yet power is fleeting. Art can endure. What lingers after the curtain falls is not Frederick’s authority, but the image of an artist holding fast to his convictions.

The music carries the story beyond the palace, beyond the king and beyond the moment. Three centuries later, we are still listening.

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photos by Teresa Castracane

The Score
a Theatre Royal Bath production
Shakespeare Theatre Company
Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW in Washington, DC
ends on October 25, 2026
2 hours and 45 minutes, including intermission
for tickets ($39–$195), visit Shakespeare Theatre

for more shows, visit Theatre in DC

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