The Bach blitz begins! (with Haydn's "Creation")

By Barbara Rose Shuler
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Hello everyone!

It’s a pleasure to dive into blogging the Carmel Bach Festival.

A little background about me. Most of my professional life has been spent in the arts and media—writing, public and commercial radio broadcasting, voice-over work and related enterprises. Though I attended Bach Festival events before Bruno’s tenure as music director, I began covering the festival as a print and broadcast journalist the year he arrived, 1992.

It has been my privilege to cover the festival over the years for various media concerns but most prominently for the Monterey Herald, which has provided the most extensive coverage of the Carmel Bach experience of any media. And, bless them, in spite of their shrinking budgets and space, the paper still considers the festival important enough to cover well, though in a more condensed way.

Each year, I mark the calendar for the week after the 4th of July as the beginning of the “Bach blitz” as I call it, when musicians gather from all over to begin rehearsing. The editors and I decide on how the coverage will look-- how much space for reviews, advances, features, etc.

I become familiar with the program schedule and get a sense of the themes and focuses as well as the fun and interesting stuff that readers will enjoy.

Then, I set up interviews with principal members of the artistic and executive staff (a favorite part of my job!) to learn more about the music and intentions of the festival creators. After that, two intense waves of writing occur: the advances the week before opening and then the coverage itself.

This blog posting represents the first moment of the second wave, which becomes a two-week total immersion in the festival, attending daytime and evening recitals and concerts and writing, writing, writing.

Last night was incredible! When Bruno first conducted The Creation Oratorio 18 years ago, his first year, I remember being stunned by the experience, unforgettable. For me all these years, that one evening watching him lead the ensemble through this Haydn masterpiece stands out as the most powerful imprint of this conductor on my soul. Though every year, he has touched me deeply in his approach to the music here at the festival.

Last night was a moment of rare musical perfection, art at a higher turn of the spiral, an transmission of what it means to strive and create with the highest aspiration over time, refining and distilling like a patient alchemist tuned to the divine. This is what the Creation Oratorio was for Haydn, his “opus summum” as Bruno calls it.

On opening night, Bruno offered his own “opus summum” in this work he cherishes--refined further during this Haydn anniversary year through a cycle of conducting the work internationally-- to finally come, full circle, to his beloved Bach Festival with the brilliant ensemble he has built and perfected over two decades in a great hall (the renovated Sunset Center) that he called into being so we could hear the music as it was meant to be heard.

It was a very good opening night!

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Barbara Rose Shuler writes Intermezzo, which chronicles classical music, in the Monterey Herald's Go! Magazine each week. She can be contacted at wordways@comcast.net.