The latest invention from the ever-innovative Bachcelona is to chase Bach’s music while riding a bicycle. The Barcelona festival that is celebrated in July – this year it will be from the 8th to the 21st – is expanding to the rest of the months of the year with activities such as the one that took place this Saturday, in the Vall d’en Bas, the starting signal for the contest with a curious itinerary of concerts to which the public, if they wanted, came pedaling.
Throughout the morning, up to three musical performances of pieces as diverse as the Cello Suite no. 6 (with a five-string piccolo cello), the Brandenburg Concerto no. 6, or counterpoints to The Art of the Fugue. All of this performed by Esmuc students who repeated the program in front of almost fifty people each time.
The strategic distance between Romanesque churches in the area – one in Puigpardines, another in Joanetes and the third in Sant Esteve d’en Bas – meant that the visitor could enjoy 30 minutes of Bach music followed by a walk of about 15 or 20 minutes. minutes by bike between one and the other, mostly on the greenway.
At 11 in the morning it was truly a German day in this beautiful area of ??La Garrotxa: the public, among which was the entire Milà family, including the journalist Mercedes Milà, active defenders of the cause of the Fundació Bachcelona, ??dressed up in raincoats and foldable cycling helmets to face the rain while continuing to pedal. The festival itself had acquired a hundred rental bicycles so that they could follow Bach’s trail, enjoying the landscape and also the culinary tastings of the area that awaited at the entrance of each church: the secallona of Embotits Gori, the cheese from Molí del Perer and the coca from Forn Bataller.
This “Bach by Bike”, which had a collective meal as an epilogue, is a unique initiative in the world of classical music. Daniel Tarrida, director of Bachcelona, ??was inspired by a festival organized by maestro Ton Koopman in France in which the public goes on foot to listen to a series of concerts, sometimes in a castle, sometimes in a church… The bicycle would be , in the Catalan case, that differential feature that made yesterday a special day, “with an impeccable organization of the Bachcelona Foundation of which I am very proud to belong,” said an enthusiastic Mercedes Milà. “People listening to music and pedaling in a place like Vall d’en Bas, which I highly recommend,” she added, pointing out that she took her own electric bike.
The town council, which has provided the venues, has preferred not to exceed 50 people per concert given the small dimensions of the halls, which, on the other hand, guarantees the value of proximity inherent to Bachcelona. Although given the success of this first day, growth and perhaps greater municipal participation is predicted.
Tarrida, who with La Vall d’en Bach generates another brand of his own based on another of his shocking word games using the surname of the great German composer, has in mind to turn it into a festival that takes up an entire weekend.
“In addition to this morning itinerary, the musicians could meet to offer longer medium-format concerts in the afternoon. And in Bachcelona style, a film linked to the theme could, for example, be projected in a square in La Vall d’ in Bas,” explains Tarrida. “The fact that it started the morning raining and then the sun came out has been a good way to confirm that the bicycle project is viable. And whoever prefers it can travel by car.”
