For the last few days I have been listening to a Bach Orgy on the radio.
Twice a year, the Harvard Radio Station, WHRB, devotes about a month to
special radio programming.  Not all of it is classical.  Some is Jazz,
some is Rock, Blues, Hillbilly.  They have had Warhorse Orgies, orgies
for a particular performer or monster orgies devoted to the works of one
particular composer or genre, or instrument.  There have even been comedy
orgies.  They go on around the clock, and classical music orgies are VERY
special!

For the first time these orgies can be heard on the internet at
<www.whrb.org>!  This one will continue till January 18th, and will
include ALL of Bach's music available on recording.  There will also be
live concerts, and interviews with Christoph Wolff, Bach scholar.  Imagine
this:  over 200 hours of Bach, broken only for a soccer game and a live
Metropolitan Opera broadcast.

This is the third Bach orgy I have listened to.  Last one was in '85 I
think.  Each time I am more impressed.  Each time I can see my own taste
changed, growing, expanding.  And each time, I can not tear myself away
from the radio.  Thirty years ago, there may have been only one or two
recordings available for a particular piece and now there are dozens!

Today as I listened, I had a dramatic realization.  When I was
younger I was far more inflexible in my taste.  There was only ONE best
performance, only one way something ought to be played.  I was especially
fussy about violinists, since I was a string player.  Today I listened to
many different performances of the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for
violin, and the keyboard and violin sonatas.  There were some performances
that are in my own collection, and some I have never heard before.  I heard
different performers from very different eras, bowing and fingering in very
different styles, giving different interpretations, and producing very
different sound qualities (scratches and hisses from the oldest).  I heard
Szigetti, Milstein, Makarski, Podger, Alice Harnoncourt, Manze, Kuijken,
Szeryng, Stepner.  There was Romantic Bach and HIP Bach, muscular Bach,
dreamy Bach, and it was ALL beautiful and intelligent, meaningful and
inspiring.

This array of styles and musical fashions was repeated over and over with
vocalists, wind players, keyboarders.  There were small choirs with little
vibrato, and there was a blockbuster Philadelphia Orchestra - Temple
University Choir performance of part of the Saint Matthew Passion!  There
are several sections of the orgy set aside for historical performances.  I
heard Kirkpatrick on harpsichord and Clavichord, William Kappell on Piano,
I could compare Schiff and Gould and many others.  And I COULD NOT tear
myself away.  They were all fantastic.  They all said important musical
things, and it was all Bach.  (The complete program listing is available
on their website.)

On our MCML, it is not unusual for someone to request advice for the
'best' recording of a particular work.  I used to leap in and extoll my
favorites, but all the while, I knew it was impossible to chose the "best"
of anything, and it was especially difficult to pick something for someone
else.  The best advice I can give to anyone is "listen to as much as you
can, compare, and keep an open mind."

The way I have listened today is the most exciting for me.  I have been
able to hear the best of the best, and know that for every fine performance
and performer I 've heard today, there are dozens more that are equally
interesting and valuable.  I've been listening to "orgies" for over thirty
years, and when they are not on the radio, I run my own.  I'll borrow
performances, buy second hand duplicates of favorite pieces, borrow from
the library.  I've enjoyed listening to music this way for as long as I can
remember.

I am so happy that so many college radio stations are going online!  I hope
many of you will now be able to enjoy these broadcasts as much as I have in
the last few decades.  (I am looking forward to the Proms on BBC3, too!
Untold riches online!)

Mimi Ezust <[log in to unmask]> listening to Rostropovich playing Suite #5.
Ahhhhhh.