Jailhouse Bach

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 C.P.E Bach, Partita in a-

Here is the atrium proper of the old Don Jail, haunted by a blond woman, as the story goes. The ghost is the mother of two kids who were incarcerated along with she and her husband, as there was a practice of imprisoning entire families if they couldn’t pay certain fees. Perhaps she did some harm to herself…guess I’d kinda despair too, as quaint as this olde gaol might appear now to our modern sensibilities.

I had been wanting to get in here to explore the acoustics and history of the place since I first googled the words ‘urban’ and ‘flute’ a couple of years ago and stumbled upon images of this interior. With a love of puns (the gallows humour of the previous post, Drop-Zone, serving as a classic, if somewhat morbid example), the idea of Jailhouse Bach sprang to mind in those heady, early days of UFP. Last weekend I was finally able to live my dream, as the site was opened to photographers as part of a community outreach initiative to document the site before it is given ye old makeover by Bridgepoint, Inc.

Saw some familiar faces in the line-up, and jokes abounded about ‘wanting to go to jail’…you know: ‘the easy part is getting in’, etc, etc! Truth be told, once in the embrace of the ghost of this gothic, storied building, I didn’t want to leave. Ever.

The acoustics were odd, not what I had imagined. Confined, not expansive. This plaintive slow movement of C.P.E. Bach is appropriately timeless and gutteral, lyrical in turn, opining for a greater freedom that comes in the other movements. Perfect for a haunted jail.

Perfect for some Jailhouse Bach! Looks like Mark Salzman beat me to the punch with this tag, but I swear I thought of it on my own before I discovered his moving tale of playing ‘cello in a jail for juvenile inmates in Los Angeles…hmm-m, foreshadowing of The Soloist?! 

Hey Mark, next time you’re in Toronto for the film festival, have I got a killer gig for the two of us!