Found at the The Times, London (July 7 1999) John Eliot Gardiner tells Richard Morrison about his epic millennium pilgrimage Sir John Eliot Gardiner will conduct all 200 of Bach's cantatas, in 50 cathedrals, churches and abbeys around Europe Not all millennium projects are dome-shaped or pear-shaped. Consider how John Eliot Gardiner plans to spend the year 2000. Between Christmas Day, 1999 and January 1, 2001 he will conduct all 200 of Bach's surviving church cantatas. What's more, he will perform them on the precise liturgical dates for which they were written. Deutsche Grammophon will record the concerts as they happen; many will also be televised throughout Europe. And in the process Gardiner will have shunted his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists round 50 different European churches, cathedrals and abbeys - from Orkney and Pembrokeshire to Milan and Zurich. If musical projects were mountains, this would surely be Everest. Why is he doing it? After all, it is not as if he needs to make his name. His brilliant pioneering of Baroque music in the 1970s and 1980s, his bold period-instrument forays into the Romantics, and more recently his success with top-notch "normal" orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic and (this week) the London Symphony - all this has made the 56-year-old Englishman one of the most celebrated figures on the musical scene. Nor does the Monteverdi Choir need the practice. Founded by Gardiner when he was a Cambridge undergraduate in 1964, it has long since established itself as one of the top half-dozen choirs in the world. So why the 40,000-mile trek round Europe in honour of Bach, a composer not exactly in need of special pleading? "The main point is that the concept, mad though it is, can only happen in one particular year," Gardiner says. "It's tailor-made for the millennium and for Bach's death year. "Either you ignore a composer's anniversary, as some people think you should, or you go to the heart of his music. Where is the heart of Bach? Surely in his cantatas. Only half a dozen are at all well known, but I haven't found a dud one yet." Gardiner's original concept was to base the project around Leipzig, Weimar and the other German towns where Bach (never a big traveller) spent nearly all his working life. Then Gardiner planned to take in towns such as Lubeck, with which Bach had a connection ("he would have become the organist there, but for the nasty tradition of having to marry the preceding organist's daughter"). Finally the project would follow the "expansion of Christianity" outwards in concentric circles. "That meant following the route of the old merchant adventurers through the Baltic and over to the British Isles, especially the Celtic parts," Gardiner says. And in each new town, links would be established between Gardiner's ultra-professionals and local amateur musicians, usually by getting the town's choir or congregation to sing the chorales. Some of that concept, including the last bit, has been realised. On the actual anniversary of Bach's death, for instance, Gardiner and his nomads ("we could have called the project Beduin Bach") will be in the perfect haven: the ethereally tranquil setting of Iona Abbey in the Hebrides. But practical obstacles soon became apparent. Some of the finest Baroque churches in eastern Germany simply couldn't afford to host Gardiner and his musicians. "Unemployment in Saxony is running at 25 per cent," Gardiner notes sadly. So he transferred concerts to more prosperous cities in France and Spain. Even so, the funding of the project, costing more than 5 million, has become a worry. Astonishingly, this quintessential millennium project, showcasing two of Britain's greatest musical ensembles across the whole continent, was refused a grant by the Millennium Commission - presumably on the ground that it wasn't dull enough. The logistics are fiendishly complicated. Bach's cantatas have many passages just for solo singers and "continuo" players: cello and keyboard. So, to save paying "idle time" to the orchestra and choir (fees for days when they are on tour but not actually required), they are being rehearsed in London and flown out to concerts. But this means that Gardiner will continually be hopping across Europe like a musical flea. The epithet "jet-setting maestro" has rarely seemed so apposite. In all he expects to make 150 flights. Just as well that he loves Bach. "He can appeal on so many different levels: intellectual, numerological, theological. But also, at the most basic level, he just makes you feel better for listening to him." The "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage", as it is now called, hasn't entirely taken over Gardiner's waking hours. The man who once told the French that there were 400 errors in Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, and is now planning to perform Bach in Leipzig, boldly undertook another "coals to Newcastle" exercise this year when he conducted Lehar's Merry Widow at the Vienna State Opera. The experience wasn't quite as merry as the widow. "Everyone warned me that a different 'Vienna Philharmonic' would turn up each night, but I didn't quite realise how radically different the orchestra would be," Gardiner admits ruefully. "After a while I was amazed to find anybody who had played in the previous performance. It was a real highs-and-lows experience. One moment I would hear the violas lilting the waltz rhythms perfectly, and I would think: 'Ah, this is why I am conducting the Widow in Vienna.' The next, a great douche of cold water was poured on my head by some vile, out-of-tune wind entry." There are unlikely to be many of those in Gardiner's current assignment, conducting the LSO in two fascinating 20th-century programmes for the City of London Festival. Tomorrow's includes the choral work Du fond de l'abime to celebrate the centenary of its composer, Lili Boulanger - a remarkable Frenchwoman who died at the age of 24. Gardiner has a personal link with the work. He was taught by Lili's sister Nadia, who bequeathed to him many scores and parts for Lili's compositions. "It's a beautiful setting of Psalm 130 - 'Out of the deep have I cried unto Thee, O Lord' - and it was written when Lili was already getting ill," Gardiner says. "Of course you can hear that bits sound like Ravel, Puccini and Faure. But that doesn't get you to the heart of the matter, which is that it's an intensely personal rhapsody." Catch it tomorrow. It may not be around again for a while. Dave [log in to unmask] http://www.classical.net/