Bach at lunchtime
Thursday lunchtime Bach, with an audience, mostly old, enjoying this less crowded and expensive pleasure at beautiful LSO St Luke's, where new leaves shimmer in the rain against the old stone. Here I am, intent on recovering motivation (no, I'm not sure this goes via intention). Bach Cello Suites come pretty high among motivations for staying alive. Will I ever hear a performance to match Casals' recordings made in the 1920s and 30s? I haven't found one yet. Not even Paolo Pandolfo's heavenly versions for viola da gamba. Raphael Wallfisch, one evening a few years ago in the new St Barnabas Church in Dulwich, was pretty great. For different reasons, so was this. And Pieter Wispelwey's Suite 3 and Suite 6? A lovely tone, but I kept finding his fast too fast and his slow too slow and he didn't seem to thread it all together. I see he has a broad repertoire - perhaps it takes a Bach obsessive...
The Bach concerts run through May, with the next programme (Schumann) scheduled for October - I wonder if I'll be attending then.
2 comments:
Yes, Bach is a very great motivator, I would agree. His music is so organised, don't you think? He makes me feel like pulling my socks up.
But I'm sorry that you feel so at sea. I can see why. Having been retired for nine months now - argh - and achieved very little that I wanted to, I feel some fear also.
Glad you are able to do this, Jean. Bach is my touchstone when my emotions are all over the map; he brings me back to the center by never disregarding the knots and gnarly paths, the highs and lows.
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