Adversity to Advantage | “Bach Among Friends”
“..., but Bach didn’t write a Bassoon Concerto!”
That was the reaction of the Toronto Symphony’s principal bassoonist, Michael Sweeney, as he related the story to me in May of this year. I’d had a similar reaction somewhat earlier when the TSO’s concertmaster, Jonathan Crow, emailed me a photo of a CD jacket listing “Johann Sebastian Bach, Rediscovered Wind Concertos” and asked, “How possible would it be to get the parts for any of these?” Something unusual was in the works.
As principal librarian of the Toronto Symphony, I’ve often thought that I have the greatest job in the world for gaining an appreciation of music. After researching, sourcing, acquiring and preparing those printed pages from which every musician on stage reads (a process that usually takes place over several months), I hear all the rehearsals (where the tricky spots are worked out) and then the concerts. Of course, my listening takes place over the sound monitor in the TSO Library, while I’m working on music to be performed in the months ahead. Best of all, I get to know the players. They all need to practice those printed pages, so everyone comes to the library. As I’m listening, I don’t just hear an instrument, I hear a person. It’s a fantastic experience and I often ponder how I might share it with our audience. This is a story about several of those players, their friendships, and their regard for one another. It’s my privilege to tell it – mostly in their own words.
In any normal year, the TSO would announce its events for the coming season in February. The 2021-22 rollout was delayed as we, like every arts organization, strategized around pandemic-gathering restrictions. “How many musicians will we be able to put on stage?” “Will we even be able to host a live audience?” “How long should the concert be?” “Intermission?” and “What if the guest conductor from Europe can’t get into the country?” These were the overriding questions of the time. In the midst of it, Jonathan Crow came up with an idea that turned adversity to advantage.
“It’s not so much a place I go to as a place I come to. It’s a freedom, a lack of control, an exploration, and I’m reacting to whatever happens upon the path.”
Just 8760 little hours ago, in December of last year, most of us were hunkering down, keeping safe, and preparing for a very different winter than we’d enjoyed in years past. Visits home were cancelled; stockings were half-heartedly stuffed; home-office chairs swivelled disconsolately from Zoom meetings to Zoom cocktail hours. This year, however, things are looking just a little bit brighter: vaccination rates are up, case rates are down, and – though the threat of the pandemic looms, ever present on the periphery – it is looking as though we may indeed have a more conventional (and decidedly more sociable) holiday season. 
