A memory of Bach, Vibrant Practices, and a Sunday morning

Sunday 18th April 2021; 06:15.

I’m driving to Manchester to meet Mark Dyer for the first time face-to-face. We have booked a recital space at the RNCM where we will be reenacting my memory of a BBC recording of Bach’s Prelude in F major from The Well-Tempered Clavier II.  I remember being a teenager when I watched this; I always made sure I caught them on TV. They were a real treat and for me a precious discovery of how to interpret this music. Exact details are hazy, and I don’t know who the pianist was/is… but his playing, style and manner had a huge impact on how I hear and play Bach. I remember how his hand rolled across the keys, almost revealing the piece one note at a time. I have deliberately not looked these films up; I would like them to remain a distant obscurity, at least for now.

The importance of this memory emerged through discussions with Mark, so far having taken place on Zoom. Bach is private for me; I play it alone and very personally. Yet it carries significance, particularly the relationship I have with the piano keys. Mark acts like a counsellor in our meetings - he listens and notices the subjects I keep returning to i.e. what seems to carry meaning. He then reflects these back, and we discuss them further. I have been surprised at the prominence of this memory of Bach. 

Zoom meeting on 17th March 2021; 09:04

Kate:

“ Those questions you asked me… they really caught me out!”

Mark:

“Sorry…”

Kate:

“No! I quite liked it because, I was like, this means something. This is getting an emotional response from me. I was like Gosh I hadn’t quite realised that before.”

“I think that I shouldn’t be doing these things.”

“We are being self-indulgent by enjoying this so much.”

“We’ve been doing this Piano Forum on a Tuesday with pianists who are locked down without their instruments at Uni and we’re just sort of talking about … a lot of it’s about sharing … erm… inspirational videos, or like, you know, discovering new pieces that they want to share.”

“We all had to think of a video that inspired us, and (smiles) …my… I might have even said this already, but… the first video I think of are these really like…. back when I was a teenager, the BBC filmed some Bach Preludes and Fugues… erm… and they were like (sigh)… when were they on? They were like … so it was maybe five minutes of TV time and it was either before the news, or before Newsnight or something like that… it was like just before like a main programme, and it was just …. A Prelude and A Fugue … and it was different pianists: Joanna MacGregor was one of them, Angela Hewitt was one of them … erm and then there were some chaps but I didn’t know who they were. And yeah, it was just like … just A Prelude and A Fugue, and you’d just like watch it. It was filmed beautifully, like really close-ups of fingers, and it was very sort-of intimate and I was like… I dunno… absolutely sucked into it.”

I normally practice Kundalini Yoga on a Sunday morning: a chance to find my Higher Self, and new depths of self-learning, endurance and spiritual reverberation. The day before, Federico Pozzer and myself had presented in the Vibrant Practices Symposium ( University of Leeds). Themes included contingency, liminality, mediation and the New Virtuosity. Attendees frequently returned to Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening Practice in their discussions, which sat wonderfully with other themes of “letting be”, increasing attention and the breadth of such a cared-for artistic practice. Driving to Manchester at sunrise to enact this memory provided me with a wonderful extension of my regular Kundalini practice and the various “Vibrant” discussions. The exploration of such hazy, teenage impressions then to physically recreate them into a reality was an amazing, breath-taking activity. Each stage of this project - the Zooms, the storyboarding, the equipment, the lighting, the costume - gradually formed this memory. When I finally sat down at the freshly-polished Steinway, formed the hand-shape I see in my memory, and then attempted to play how I hear it in my memory, I experienced a wholeness that felt humbling, warm and incredibly special. We captured it and (think we) feel happy with it… we will see what happens from here.