The music of the spheres

It was one of those evenings - most evenings, to tell you the truth - when I didn't want to go out.

However, we had tickets for Tafelmusik.

Seventeen long years in Hades, and I never got the opportunity to see Tafelmusik. They were either sold out, or the schedule didn't permit. We made sure of this opportunity by buying a small subscription to the Early Music Society of Victoria.

Steeling myself against my Taurean tendencies to warmth, comfort, and indolence, I reminded myself that this was Tafelmusik, for heaven's sake, and that it wasn't raining, and that, instead of a long Hadean wait for a bus-ride, the Resident Fan Boy and I could take a fifteen-minute stroll to Alix Goolden Hall.

I forgot my cushion, of course. I have such first-world problems.

Fifteen musicians and one actor took the stage, and it was like a revolving constellation of waves of beautiful music. The narrative followed the day-to-day life of the citizens of Liepzig, where Bach and his large family lived. Without leaving our pews (Alix Goolden is, of course, a former church), we were transported by slide and music to the town hall, and the churches. We were shown where the music students lived. Concerts at the coffee house were re-created. The sumptuary laws of the time and place, which determined how different classes in Liepzig dress, were explained. There was a great deal of emphasis on who made the instruments and how, using images of current instrument makers.

There wasn't much mention of women, alas, although a third of the Tafelmusik ensemble - and their director - is female.

Still, it was like a time machine, and the musicians turned and swayed, and rearranged themselves, some dropping back to chairs to await their next turn.

At one point, the audience was invited to sing the eight notes that make up the Goldberg Variations; at another, violinists appeared like shadows in the balconies, passing along an air.

Tafelmusik performed two movements of the third Brandenberg Concerto, and Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep may safely graze). I felt those around me pulled and rocked by the familiar music.

The rest was not quite so famous - although I recognized the tune of Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, calls the voice to us) as something sung in church to other lyrics.

Two women stepped forward for a brief bit of Klezmer in the section about market days, the only days Jews were allowed into the city. Everything else was very Lutheran.

At the end, I sprang (well, struggled) to my feet to applaud.  This is rare for me.

The performers bowed and bowed -- and left with no encore.

It was enough.