Storyteller, radio host and musician Tom Allen is taking a show about the life of a young Johann Sebastian Bach on the road this winter. JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow is a blend of music, storytelling, and historical research that illuminates a little known period of the composer’s life.
The show will be touring through Southern Ontario in January and February 2024, kicking off in Richmond Hill on January 18, with a stop at Toronto’s Hugh’s Room Live on February 11, and at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on February 18, among other engagements.
Bach’s Teenage Years
The teenage years of Johann Sebastian Bach, budding organ virtuoso, were spent taking on a variety of musical gigs from the age of about 15. Alongside his reputation as an organist, he was also developing something of a name for himself as a young hothead. There was a reported street brawl with an oboe player in Arnstadt, among other rumours.
At 17, he lost out on a gig in Sangerhausen when the local duke intervened against his appointment. He drifted into a job as a violinist in the private orchestra of Duke Johann Ernst III. Later that year, he was appointed to the position of organist at the helm of a newly built organ in Arnstadt.
While he was working in Arnstadt, he went on a trip to hear the renowned organist Dietrich Buxtehude in Lübeck, some 400km away. The trip was to take a month, but Bach ended up staying with Buxtehude for four months (from October 1705 to February 1706). His employer in Arnstadt was furious, and severely reprimanded the young virtuoso.
After making the full journey back again on foot, he found his relationship with the local church permanently soured. Bach would go on to Mülhausen in 1706.
JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow
JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow begins with the first leg of that journey. In the story, he’s led by already acrimonious relations with his employers, along with that oboist brawl, to leave Arnstadt for a visit to Buxtehude to escape the tense atmosphere.
Young Johann walks the 400km in wintry conditions to visit Buxtehude in Lübeck, a lively port city in the north of Germany. There, he encounters bustling streets and busy sidewalks, street fights, and in the midst of it all, a little insight and a sense of fulfillment after the disappointment of his troubles at work. He also finds a father figure (Johann was orphaned by age ten), and perhaps even true love.
The story is, naturally, illuminated with music.
The Show
The story blends what little historical record there is of Bach’s early years with music and storytelling. The music is drawn, naturally, from Bach’s own works, but also from the music he would have heard on his travels, including movements from the violin partitas, selections from the three-part inventions, a section from a Buxtehude Cantata, and other baroque pieces.
Rachmaninoff’s more romantic transcription of the Gavotte from the E Maj. Partita, Chorale Preludes and other music that evokes the characters and story is woven into the story.
Tom Allen serves in the role of storyteller. Allen is best known these days as a host on CBC Radio, but he began his musical career playing the trombone. Harpist Lori Gemmell (Allen’s wife) will perform as one of the musicians.
The rest of the cast changes with the locations. For January shows in Richmond Hill, Guelph and Collingwood, Erika Raum, violin, Joe Phillips, bass and Suba Sankaran, voice will join the couple. In February, for shows in Wellington, PEC, Peterborough, Waterloo, Toronto and Burlington, Yolanda Bruno, violin, Michael Bridge, accordion, Patricia O’Callaghan, voice and Kevin Fox, cello, guitar and voice, will round out the cast.
- Find out more about the performances from Waterloo to Peterborough and tickets [HERE].
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