Tim does a magnificent job attempting to describe the indescribable experience of Roche Continents. A task I failed at on my return twelve months ago. My own week in Salzburg broke me; melted me; cast me in a new mould, and sent me out afresh. It changed me more anything ever before. Such passion, energy and intensity! These are days we will long to experience again and again, and stories we will tell our grandchildren. These are people and memories that will be in your life forever. You will love them, grow with them. Cherish them.
My colleague Tim is just back from Roche Continents an amazing programme bringing together the arts and sciences at the Salzburg Festival. I was honoured to be able to take part last year, and understand exactly how he feels. Twelve months down the line, the call to live broadly and passionately still rings strong.
“Well over three and half centuries ago, strengthened by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the New World where they could worship according to their own beliefs - and solve crimes. […] By day they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes. […] Pilgrim detectives. […] With the big hats.”
I’ve falllen totally in love with this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, and garden designer Piet Oudolf have created a perfect cloister. Dark, contemplative, sensuous. Lost under the eves with a sliver of blue and white above. Eyes caught by the movement of the bees and ears by hushed snippets of overheard conversation, I could spend a lifetime here. High summer gives it a dusky quality, something of a cool courtyard in a far-away land blended seamlessly with a lost corner of an English country house garden.. I can also imagine it in winter. The steep roofs blanketed with snow and with rain falling.
“I need a savage, unforgiving, brutal God. I don’t want some bourgeois Anglican God I can have a nice cup of tea with. I want to be frightened of my deity, not in awe.”
