Daily Dose of Bach

For the past several years, instead of making a New Year's resolution, I've chosen a word as sort of an overview of what I want for the year. One year it was "health"-much too broad-and last year it was "open." Being in a new state, new town, new church, etc., I thought it would be a good idea to be open to the way things were done instead of bringing in my own ideas right away.  That actually worked very well, unsurprisingly.

For 2017 I wanted to change things up a bit.  As I said farewell to the old year I felt great anxiety and fear for what was coming in our nation. I knew I had to "do something"-sign petitions, contact my congress persons, advocate for the refugees-but I also felt I needed to take care of my own frazzled soul.

So, I've chosen to either play or listen to Bach every day.  Why Bach? Simply put it's because of the deep peace and joy I feel from his music. Whether it's a complex, dense fugue of many voices or an elegantly ornamented melody, his compositions take me to a place I want to be.

It is really not so hard to do, this daily dose of Bach. So far I've listened to the entire Christmas Oratorio, consisting of six cantatas, while cooking several weeks of dinner. For years I've brought out that recording at the beginning of Advent and only managed to hear the first few tracks! I've already discovered that listening to Bach is a much more calming influence that the afternoon's All Things Considered.

If it's a day when I'm not working and I want to play my daily dose, the Goldberg Variations are sitting on the music rack of my piano.  These 30 variations of the exquisite Aria have long been my go-to in times of personal upheaval.  But I've never played them-only listened. Now I'm trying to wrap my fingers around even a few of them.

Then if it's a working day I play some Bach on the organ- a real no-brainer, right? I could play a page a day for years and never repeat but I've decided to work and get to the nitty gritty of what makes this composer great. For years I've programmed his chorale prelude Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele and have always been dissatisfied with my performance. It is dense, the pedal is hard and there are ornaments galore, yet the organist must make it sound easy! This has been my daily dose while at church and it has been a gratifying step-back, start again experience.  Maybe I will finally play it well.

So far, so good... I will keep you posted. Thank you, Bach.