3 dec

Spent some valuable time with Bach today. I am reading the recent biography by John Elliot Gardiner. Today read the chapters that are the main point of his book; the incredible spurt of genius output in the years 1723-1725. Bach wrote about 80 Cantates, some of them a half hour long pieces. And the he wrote the St. John Passion and most of the St. Matthew passion, although he finished that one later. A CD, am I the last person thinking about CD’s?, a week! And then such works of genious. In the last weeks before leaving Forest Row in september, I have made a serious attempt to get all of my cd’s downloaded to the computer, or better said to the little passport hard disk that we have. So there are hundreds of cd’s there, but till about last week I had no clue how to access them. Computer expert Julie solved that problem a few weeks ago. It was so much fun to read about a cantate and listen to it instantly. Had my good share of St. John and St. Mathew. Kind of strange, easter music in the Adbvent, but then: our household has a very stringent restriction on Christmas music till after Sinterklaas (5 dec) which Julie and I will celebrate for the first time with the two of us this thursday. And then the first music will be from the Wiener Sangerknaben – or Wiener Sniggle Snaggle, as Julie calls them – before Julie will turn the cd-player to Ed Ames and Nat King Cole – no Slade in our household, Anna. Anyway. ‘Es ist volbracht’, from the John Passion is one of my new favourityes, although I would cut the jolly female voice that disturbs the song in my opinion. Gardiner thought it was sublime the way it is. But St. Mathew is unsurpassed of course. I remember my mother asking herself the question that, if she was to have to live on a desert island with the choice of only one piece of music – these are the kind of questions about life that I grew up with – would she chose for Die Zauberflote (Magic Flute) from Mozart or St, Mathew from Bach. The choice was so absurd for my teenager ears that I forgot her answer. Bach I suppose, mom? The Gardiner book is a delight. One of the things that is splendid is that he understands Bach as a conductor. As normal people we are seeing Bach mainly as the composer, but Gardiner makes clear that these 80 cantates and 2 passions also had to be performed. Being not the most easy music – easy to the ear means a lot of work – the rehearsing took a long time. And then Bach was also en vogue as one of the supreme players of the organ of his time. What Gardiner tries to accomplish is to make Bach lively – there is not a lot of reliable documents about his life – through his music. A brillant idea, brilliantly performed by Gardiner. Can’t wait to listen to the Weihnachtsoratorium. Maybe I can squeeze it in between Ames and Crosby.