Bach Pilgrimages — Thomas Bowes

Bach Pilgrimage Tours

See below for details of this year’s Pilgrimage

Especially designed for Church spaces, Tom’s annual Bach Pilgrimage presents a concert of Bach’s solo violin music, this year also featuring works by Bach’s great friend and colleague, Telemann. The concerts reflect the emotional and spiritual strength of his music, with spoken introductions giving context and background to the works. This show has worked on more than 70 occasions and is tailored for music aficionados and newcomers alike.

If you are interested in hosting a concert for a future Bach Pilgrimage tour, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Tom using the contact form here.

J.S. Bach - ‘Chaconne’ from Violin Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004, recorded at Binham Priory, Norfolk

Tom: “A man - he has tears in his eyes - approaches me after a concert; “I never thought a whole evening of solo violin would be anything like that… wow!”.

This is the reaction of an elderly man in a village church just after hearing me play some of Bach’s ‘Sei Solo’ on my 2013 Bach Pilgrimage. I have to admit that I had worried that the collection of pieces making up this magnum opus for solo violin by the great J.S. Bach might be too much for an audience of locals attending a fund-raising event. How wrong I was.

I now know that this music - penned some 300 years ago as a response to the sudden loss of a beloved wife – will always (if I do my job properly) bring forth such a response. Why? Because despite its great craft and undeniable appeal to the classical music aficionado, it tells an intensely human story. A story of loss, of aloneness: but a story too of redemption and love. Sei Solo is full of the anguished and inconsolable, but also full of light and perhaps above all, it is full of the dance.

After the sort of awkward silence that follows a confession made between strangers, the elderly gent continues. He tells me that though he isn’t a music connoisseur, the music moved him deeply; and that knowing that it was Bach’s response to the catastrophe of losing a beloved wife made every note fill with meaning.”

Bach Pilgrimage 2021

15th - 24th October

Telemann - ‘Allegro’ from Fantasia No.1 in B flat

About the Tour

Tom: “This year I’m at last on the road again. I so look forward to playing for you dear people – a real live audience once again.

Most of the cancelled West Country concerts from May 2020 are now included in an eight-concert Pilgrimage in the latter half of October. Starting out in Cornwall and Devon with six concerts presented by Carn to Cove: https://www.carntocove.co.uk

But whilst I’m not giving myself quite the geographical challenges of previous years (remembering a concert in Bristol in 2018 after an all day drive from St Andrews!) I am also making my way eastwards and playing in Guildford and Margate.

Turner Contemporary in Margate is a particular thrill as I’ll be playing my violin in a space usually completely given over entirely to the visual. But I’m told the acoustic is superb. It’s also a concert with a particularly current cause to get behind: https://meassociation.org.uk

Thrilled too to be in this beautiful space in Guildford: https://www.hennesseybrownmusic.com/concerts/thomas-bowes-solo-violin-recital-bach-pilgrimage

But with all this year’s concerts there’s a difference. I’m including the delightful Fantasias of Bach’s great friend and colleague Georg Phillip Telemann. And you’ll be able to hear his music alongside the works of the great JS Bach. Telemann’s twelve slight but fabulously varied and characterful Fantasias are a perfect antidote to Bach’s mighty opus. Where Bach is deep and searching and epic, Telemann is witty and fun – and to the point.

Read more about my discovery of these little masterpieces here.

Come along and be moved and entertained in equal measure.

I’m so excited to be presenting these concerts and at last out and about again.

See you there!

Tom”