The Social Distancing Music Festival - Exploring those 'espaces imaginaires'
Les Charmes de la Vie or The Music Party (1718) - Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) During this time of chronic and unaccustomed isolation over Easter, I sit at home reading, writing and practising the harpsichord and piano. A grey mist has descended over all our lives and everything we do. All the while I contemplate the sad demise this year of the many sublime music festivals and competitions I usually cover in such detail on this internet journal - the Leipzig Bach, the Chopin Nohant, Chopin and his Europe, Duszniki Zdroj, Music for Peace in Japan, the great International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition held every five years in Warsaw, which may or may not take place in October 2020. It occurred to me that I could cover, perhaps describe, as a sort of recompense, what Chopin so tellingly referred to as his espaces imaginaires. Music conceived but without an audience . This might consist of the many stories of disappointed hopes that must lie ...