Why you should ditch the yoga for a prelude a day
Clemency Burton-hill, for as long as she can remember, has played Bach every day on the violin. But, as she related in Planet Bach (Radio 4, Thursday), all of that changed at the beginning of 2020, when she suffered a devastating brain haemorrhage. Over the past 18 months she has had to learn to walk, speak and play music again. She still takes time over her words, some of them coming with great effort, but her recovery is remarkable.
And Bach has, over this time, not always been a source of solace to her. Sometimes, attempting to play Bach, and even listening to others play, has been too painful; a reminder of everything she has lost. She confessed this quietly, to the haunting strains of Hilary Hahn playing the Violin Sonata No 3 in C Major.
This programme, among Burtonhill’s first steps back towards her career in radio broadcasting along with her podcast, Classical Fix, was her reflection on what Bach means to her, and her journey back to his music. It was also a collection of contributions from musicians around the world who make playing Bach part of their own daily rituals, explaining why and how Bach is a guiding star for them. Among them were Masaaki Suzuki, sitting down to the harpsichord or organ each day in Tokyo, and the viola player Robin Ireland, who plays at the end of the day, as a final routine before bed.
“Bach sorts out your priorities,” said the South African pianist Grant Mclachlan, who plays Bach every morning, with a view of Table Mountain seen through the pouring rain from his house in Cape Town. “It’s like my morning yoga... It calms you for the day.”
Mclachlan also had some words that must have resonated with Burton-hill in particular: “Music occupies every single part of our brain, and so music is the core of everything we are. We are made of vibrations. And so, somehow, Bach is at the core of all of this. It’s the most emotionally packed music you can find without being sentimental.”
This programme was, like the music, both beautiful and emotionally complex. There was a strong sense that Burton-hill is by no means finished with her recovery; this was a snapshot of her experience today, infused with a difficult mixture of sadness and hope. It was stunning radio, elegantly put together by producer Rosie Boulton, and anchored from a place of strong stillness by Burton-hill. And it may just make you want to swap your daily yoga, or your morning coffee, for the occasional prelude and fugue instead.
Not all of us can be virtuoso musicians, but it’s fascinating to glimpse behind the scenes of what it might really be like to be one in How to Play (Radio 4, Tuesday). The first edition of the new series followed violinist Rachel Podger preparing to perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music.
“It’s tricky because everyone knows it,” said Egarr. The Academy of Ancient Music has played the piece countless times, and in their first run-through of Spring they did sound a little as if they were playing it in their sleep.
Podger interrupted: “I know it’s a tall order, because everyone knows this too well, but could we play it as though we’ve never, ever heard it before? Really fresh – brightness – here we go!” They had another try, with noticeably more bounce and zing.
“It’s all about having a vision, so that it becomes a unique experience. Just for that concert, just for that day, just for that moment, and just for those listeners,” said Podger. Along with several members of the Academy of Ancient Music, Podger explained their use of period instruments, and the transformative effect on musicians in rehearsal of considering the music’s effect on all five senses. This was music seen and heard from all angles.
My ear accordingly tuned in, I detected a bit of Bach’s Prelude in C in the background of The Food Programme (Radio 4, Sunday) accompanying presenter Dan Saladino’s compelling discussion of the history of the digestive biscuit. It didn’t have a huge amount to do with the topic at hand, but I suppose it proves that Bach covers the full spectrum of human experience.
As well as the invention of the digestive in 1839, originally marketed as a health food, the programme covered our national affection for biscuits, the subtleties and importance of tea dunkability, the evolving fortunes of wheat crops, and the game-changing invention of the chocolate digestive in 1925, at which point any pretence of health benefits was largely abandoned. But as long as you accompany your daily dunk with a bit of Bach, maybe it’s OK? Well, that’s the message I took from it.