"A WELL-REGULATED music to the glory of God" is, no doubt, the
aim of your director of music, and surely informed your keeping of
Holy Week and Easter - but probably was not quite as fully realised
as it was in the life's work of the original formulator of this
ambition, the subject of the superlative documentary Bach: A
passionate life (BBC2, Holy Saturday).
The director of the Monteverdi Choir, Sir John Eliot Gardiner,
distilled for us his own lifetime's study and achievement, with
enough acknowledgement of the centrality of Christian faith in
Bach's inspiration to make this, for me, almost an adequate
recompense for television's abject failure to present broadcasts
appropriate to the holiest season of the year.
Sir John Eliot offered us a compelling account of Bach's life,
gloriously illustrated by his own choir and orchestra in
performance. Paradoxically, despite the focus on the central part
played by the composer's faith, this was a (successful) attempt to
strip away the pious reverence that dehumanises our picture of
Bach. Recent scholarship has presented a far more rounded figure:
very aware of his genius, at times too self-assured,
uncompromising, and frustrated by the civic and religious
authorities that hampered his work.
Sir John Eliot marshalled impressive figures to attest to Bach's
singular greatness. The Revd Dr John Drury considered theological
aspects; and Philip Pullman volunteered that this music "would
persuade me of the existence of God, if I felt inclined to believe
in one". The programme's title was splendidly vindicated: not only
did it refer to Bach's two great Passions, but it persuaded us that
here was a fully human figure, yet producing art of unique divine
inspiration.
The Road (BBC4, Easter Day) offered a highly effective
meditation on life and death, although I suspect that its director,
Marc Isaacs, had not conceived it thus. The A5 is the ancient route
of immigrants who seek a better life in London, and the film sought
out some of those who settle along it. This was a tribute to the
most unexpected of locations, not one in the first rank of
pilgrimage des- tinations - the London suburb of Cricklewood.
Isaacs found compelling stories of men and women who have left
their native lands to make a home here.
Two of them - Peggy, a refugee from Nazi persecution; and Billy,
adrift, but sure that he no longer belonged in Ireland - died in
the course of filming, and it felt like a personal bereavement, so
engaged had we become with them. This was an example of TV's giving
attention to unnoticed individuals, observing their lives, and
encouraging us to think about our own sense of belonging or
alienation.
The palpable joy of the Kashmiri hotel-worker, when his wife was
finally granted permission to join him; the extraordinary ménage of
the former air stewardess Brigid, whose life's work has become the
creation of a palatial rococo home-from-home for foreign students;
and the complete Buddhist monastery in a terrace house - all these
seemed extraordinary enrichments of our capital, worthy of
celebration as signs of richness. Where, it forced us to reflect,
is our abiding city?