As I type this I’m listening to some Bach harpsichord concertos, and I just finished a motet.
This year I am aiming to listen to all the works of Bach. By doing a little bit every single day it’s never overwhelming.
Now, into August, it’s kind of amazing how much music I’ve listened to! For instance, I have listened to all 200+ cantatas Bach wrote. I listened to one a day, and we’re 200+ days into the year, so there we go. I also listened to all of his organ works. Many of these were quite short, but still, hundreds of pieces. That took us from BWV 525 to BWV 771.
August is going to be a fantastic listening month. Bach’s famous masses and oratorios are all coming up. My calendar has me starting the B-Minor mass tomorrow. Of course I’ve listened to this work dozens of times, but it will be cool to do in the context of listening to everything else. I have heard snippets of the B-Minor mass in lots of the cantatas that Bach wrote before it. Just because of the way I structured this listening I’ll also have the Goldberg Variations coming up this month, right after the St. Matthew Passion.
I’m still writing a sonnet a week too. This pace of two lines a day feels quite doable. Here’s a sentimental little one I wrote called “Peaches.” We didn’t wind up picking peaches this year, but oh well…
Remember, now, the walk into the field?
A basket in the hand, the blazing sun…
The orchard waits — what have the trees concealed?
I peer into the branches, first see one
and then another: peaches, plump and ripe.
We twist the stems, so many, stacking high,
as through the leaves the sunshine, in a stripe,
illumines all this flesh. A butterfly
drinks deeply, and we taste this sugar too,
on peaches, and each others’ lips. A while
will pass — and in the grocery store a few
new peaches, stacked, will conjure up a smile.
Remember now, the shade of summers past?
A kiss, that in the taste of peach, can last…
Your Bach Project is really “humming along”. How do you select the recording — performance, artist, ensemble, conductor, etc. — you listen to for each work?
@Barb – I just type “BWV [number]” into the browser on my phone and various YouTube type videos come up. The Netherlands Bach Society and the JS Bach Foundation have recorded a lot of the more obscure ones. Then many big choirs/musicians have recorded the better known ones. I tend to choose whatever is at the top of the listings with the thought that this is probably the crowd favorite. Sometimes I don’t like it and then I go to the next one (I have certain likes and dislikes with choral music so…).
That is great, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Although, when I searched for “motet” in the Cambridge Dictionary, I found that this term is simply not there. That being said, I did find it in the Oxford and the Merriam-Webster dictionary later on: “A short, polyphonic choral composition on a sacred text usually without instrumental accompaniment.”
I do agree that by doing a little bit every single day, such as listening to a piece of music that Bach wrote every day, it’s never overwhelming. You also mentioned that when writing a sonnet a week, this pace of two lines a day feels quite doable.
So, I wonder if you are going to name this sonnet “Peaches” or “The Peach Field”. I just suspect that there is someone who has already written a sonnet called “Peaches”. I was also thinking about the name “The Peach Wood” but later abandoned it.