Knitting Concert Returns to All Saints' with Bach's Goldberg Variations
Robert Bridge plays one of Western music's most celebrated compositions
All Saints' Church by Putney Common
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June 8, 2026
The popular Knitting Concert series returns to All Saints’ Church, Putney, on Sunday 28 June at 6.30pm, with pianist Robert Bridge performing two sets of variations that explore music’s power to soothe and heal. Admission is free, with drinks served from 6pm.
The evening opens with Arvo Pärt’s Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka, written in 1977 for the composer’s daughter as she recovered from an operation. The piece, though brief and simple, glows with the luminous serenity that defines Pärt’s work — a quiet meditation before the grandeur to follow.
The main work of the programme is J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, one of the most celebrated compositions in Western music. Legend has it that Bach wrote the piece for an insomniac count who asked for music to help him sleep, though the story is almost certainly apocryphal. What remains undisputed is the brilliance of the work itself: thirty variations on a single aria that traverse every facet of Bach’s imagination, from intricate canons and elegant dances to flashes of humour and dazzling virtuosity. It is, as Bach himself described, “composed for connoisseurs for the refreshment of their spirits.”
True to the concert’s name, audience members are invited to bring something to occupy their hands — knitting, sketching, embroidery, or simply a glass of wine — while listening. Bridge’s Knitting Concerts began as a spontaneous experiment in June 2002, when a small audience worked on creative projects during a recital. Since then, around 80 concerts have raised nearly £50,000 for local charities.
This year’s event supports All Saints’ organ appeal, which aims to fund the installation of a permanent pipe organ worthy of the church’s acoustics. Bridge has pledged £1,000 toward the project, hoping to contribute a few pipes in the name of the Knitting Concerts. “If you stay on afterwards and buy an extra glass or two while you spill out onto the lawns,” he says, “I think we should get somewhere near the total.”
The organ at All Saints'
The concert promises an evening of reflection, beauty and gentle humour — a celebration of music, community and creativity in one of Putney’s most atmospheric settings.
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