Newsletter 30.3.21
Performance dates!
With the prospect of live performance allowed over the summer, it looks as though finally the project can get going in earnest! If you’re in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Berkshire, Northamptonshire or Lancashire, keep a close eye on the May/June dates! You can register for notifications of performance details in your chosen counties here.
My plan is still to play the whole piece in all 48 counties of England before the end of 2021 (yes, I think I am mad), and unless later lockdowns put a spanner in the works, I’m a good way to having that fixed.
This is a huge challenge of stamina and logistics, and if you’d like to sponsor me for undertaking this craziness, you can do that here:
April livestream
I’ve been giving an informal livestream on the 1st of each month, working my way up through the keys. Having started with C in January, and covered C# in February then D in March, I’ve now reached Eb for 1st April.
There’s no April Fool involved (unless the gods of technology have ideas of their own!) – but there is something appropriate in this music for Holy Week, I think. Bach was obsessed with numbers (see this fascinating post from Alex Aitken marking Bach’s birthday last week), and the three flats of Eb major often represent the Trinity in his music. In the set I’ll be playing, the deeply personal, grief-stricken minor of Book 1 gives way to reverence and a blaze of optimism in the major – a Good Friday to Easter Sunday transition (just a few days early).
Nicholas Mulroy has been writing and speaking about a number of paintings during lockdown, and this beautiful post (shared with permission) felt relevant – the eternal resonance and universal paradoxes he mentions are somehow also in this music, which is simultaneously universal and completely personal, crafted with mathematical precision and intellectual fire, but expressing the most vulnerably and also joyously human experiences. As the German organist Helmut Walcha said, “Bach opens a vista to the universe.” (More of my favourite Bach quotes here.)
If you’d like to join me for these preludes and fugues, I’ll be playing live at 9pm on Thursday – available to view as always via the project facebook page, or after the event via the project website.
Project charities
I’ve recently written a short(ish!) profile of each of the four charities that Project 48 is supporting, which you can read on the website, along with comment about why I chose each. It was moving to read again about the dedicated, transformative work that all four charities carry out – and in amongst the massive amount of musical preparation and endless admin involved in making this project happen, it was great to focus afresh on that! Bach’s inscription to Book 1 of the 48 says that this music was written “for the benefit and use of the musical youth eager to learn, as well as for the special pastime of those already skilful in this study” – so the charities have been selected because they work with those same categories of people today – musicians young and old, learning and experienced.
Requests for help
Lots of people have kindly asked what they can do to help. Here are two things!
1) There are eight counties where I don’t yet have a performance in the pipeline. Can you help?
- Bedfordshire
- Dorset
- Essex
- Herefordshire
- Isle of Wight
- Northumberland
- Suffolk
- West Yorkshire
2) I am currently so busy with the music and admin of this project that I am not giving it a great deal of PR attention. Now that the live performances are on the horizon, do you have any contacts that can help provide coverage of the project? Every little helps!
Thank you so much for your ongoing support – and I look forward to seeing many of you in person in the coming months.
When it comes – Happy Easter!
With best wishes,
Libby