A new year. A fresh start. Hope for positive change. That’s what we all need as the clock changes over at 12 AM.
Last year I purchased the book “Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day”, by Clemency Burton-Hill, which lists a new work to listen to for each day of the year. As the new year approached I pulled the book out to listen to her suggestion for January 1st: Sanctus from Bach’s B Minor Mass. Just before midnight I sat listening in the dark with the glow of a candle as the BBC Chorus performed with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, directed by Otto Klemperer, courtesy of YouTube. Despite it being just a recording I could imagine the power of this as a live performance, the voices buoyed by the orchestra, filling every corner with sound and celebration.
Unfortunately we’ve had to press pause on filling the halls with music over the last year, relying on technology to provide us with recorded performances. Recordings are invaluable, both as entertainment as well as a historical record, but not the same as the experience of live performance.
I haven’t been able to play with another musician since March of 2020, but the memory of performing with an ensemble, and the feelings associated with attending live performance have not vanished. Watching a clip of a ballet online, it suddenly brought the sensation of going to the performance hall, being amid all the other concertgoers and their rapt engagement with the performance on stage. People milling about during intermission, the coughs and shuffles during the performance, and the occasional unwelcome glow of a cellphone. The enthusiastic applause and rare, but always generous, encore gifted by a performing musician. Live performance has a frisson, a tangible feeling that envelopes the audience, whether you are attending a classical performance, pop concert, or even passing a musician performing on the street. Whether you are listening to music that has endured for centuries, or hearing music from the latest album, live performance is something that is being shared by performer and listener alike.
While we aren’t able to share in this gift as we were before, artists are still creating and musicians are still playing. We look forward to the day we can meet in person again and hear the sound of music that’s not through mediocre headphones or distorted by the vagaries of an internet video call. But in the meantime, find music that lets your imagination open, and transports you to another experience for a short moment in time. Think about what endures and what will pass. What is truly of value and what is inconsequential. Let the music write you a story or paint a picture in your mind. Or simply let go, floating along with the sound, letting the rhythm of its waves carry you wherever it may be going.
Clemency Burton-Hill ends her entry for Bach’s Sanctus on January 1st:
“And so on this first day of a new adventure, let us begin with a great big drumbeat and a choir singing their hearts out. Irrespective of your religious leanings, whoever you are, wherever you come from, this is five or so minutes of music to gladden the heart and lift the soul and say: ‘Come on then, new year, let’s be having you.’”
So let’s try to face this new year with hope, good music, and the knowledge that we will endure (or at least Bach will)!
Listen to Bach’s Sanctus from the Mass in B Minor.
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth
Pleni sunt coeli et terra
Gloria ejus.
Holy, holy, holy
Lord God of power and might
Heaven and earth are full
Of your glory.