Masato Suzuki plays the harpsichord and leads the Bach Collegium Japan with a clean, pearly touch, creating performances with the delicacy of freshly trimmed and polished fingernails. The son of the ensemble’s founder, Masaaki Suzuki, Masato will lead the group’s latest European tour, beginning January 21. We spoke on video call about composing in the footsteps of Mozart, the financial pressures of early music, and the beauty in an aging audience.

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… has been an editor at VAN since 2015. He’s the author of The Life and Music of Gérard Grisey: Delirium and Form (Boydell & Brewer), and his journalism has appeared in The Baffler, the New York...