concerto caledonia

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David McGuinness's diary - August-October 2001

Tuesday 30 October 2001

I spent today just practising at home, something I do all too rarely.  It sounds like a lazy kind of existence, but it's exhausting: at 6 o'clock I fell asleep on the sofa in front of an old video of Henry's Cat, with my daughter occasionally leaning over to prize my eyelids open: "Stay awake!".  Alison rang mid-morning to share that 'it's 11.30 already, and it should sound better than this' feeling, that can set in when fingers won't do what you want them to.

Winter arrived with a vengeance today: howling gales and driving rain.  Marie dropped in to pick up some music this morning, and commented that living in Scotland can sometimes be like living onboard the prow of a ship.  The critic Stephen Johnson said to me the other day that Scotland's weather was tailor-made for the manic depressive.

If, as Bob Geldof once said, the best thing about being in a band is that you get into other people's gigs for free, then one nice thing about making records is that other people give you theirs.  This weekend I acquired the new Cnut album, and a couple of John Butt's solo CDs that he's made for harmonia mundi.  His recording of Bach toccatas and the Schulber chorale preludes is quite riveting, and heartily recommended to anyone with even the most fleeting interest in organ music.  It made me want to relive my student days of getting up early (by 1980s university standards) every morning to play exercises on the piano, and then wrestle with Bach on the organ before classes started.  'Classes' sounds terribly formal - it was much more laid-back than that.

Last night I finally printed out the last set of parts for the November concerts, so no more notational wrangling on Sibelius for me for a few weeks!  What a relief.  

An email from Catherine Bott: she and Julie Burchill are the guests on tomorrow's Woman's Hour on Radio 4 - not together surely?

Wednesday 24 October 2001

I don't have much time for dairy entries at the moment, as I'm preparing the material for all three November concerts before we play the first one.  I had a slight setback today while inputting a Kelly quartet to the computer, when I discovered that one movement was missing from the 2nd violin part.  It just wasn't in my NLS photocopies - so I'll have to wait for the library to send me the missing bits before I can finish it off.   

Ricordo gave a great concert in St Andrews in the Square on Saturday. No other venue in Glasgow would have suited them so well in terms of the acoustic, but I did feel sorry for Matthew Wadsworth, who waited for perfect silence before playing Kapsberger's Arpeggiata (a surprisingly modern-sounding theorbo piece) only to have it shattered by a recurrent car alarm a couple of streets away.  Soundproofing wasn't really top of the list of priorities when they did the place up, so I hope the noise isn't too intrusive when it goes out on the radio.

A call from Calum the other day gave us the go-ahead for the Prefab Sprout/Mr McFall's Chamber collaboration, recording the McFalls contribution in mid-January.  So more work on Sibelius for me in December.  Speaking of Sibelius, I had lunch with John Butt yesterday who told me that many years ago he taught the Finn twins who wrote the Sibelius program - and that they called it Sibelius because of their surname! I'd never thought of that - they could have called it Rautavaara of course.  

In the car the other day I heard my Radio Scotland interview go out, and was intrigued to hear how eclectic my accent has become.  There's vowels and consonants from all corners of the British Isles in there now.  It's mostly subconscious, but I do pick up linguistic things when I like the sound of them.  When I was working on and off in Cumbria in the late 80s, it would only take a couple of weeks for 'my' to become not the Glasgow 'ma' but the Northern 'me'.  'Chuck us me coat, will ya?'  I can't say it any more now, I'd have to hear it around me for a while ...

Wednesday 17 October 2001

Once again I fail to take a convincing holiday.  On Monday I met Michael Tumelty of the Herald for a morning coffee - the results of our conversation are in today's paper and here.  In spare moments I've been preparing editions for the 29 November concert: it's a satisfying process pulling together the performance material, but I keep having to remind myself that the concerts start in a couple of weeks and I'd better do some practice as well.

Yesterday, Marie and I took Iain McGillivray out to lunch at our favourite haunt, Number Sixteen.  Iain is a tireless source of practical assistance, accommodation for visiting players, wise advice, and good company, so it was a pleasure to treat him for once.  After a couple of glasses of Sardinian wine, I found that on my way home, for the first time ever I could listen to The Shaggs on my walkman and make sense of it.  I've been revisiting my copy of Songs in the Key of Z, which is enough to make you question all received notions of musical competence and value - an essential experience for anyone who occasionally gets a little bit bored of life the way it is.  

When I got home there was an enormous white envelope on the doormat marked 'On Her Majesty's Service'.  Not for once a tax demand, but my mammoth photocopying order from the National Library.  So I now have lots of Kelly symphonies and quartets to wade through.  I foresee another week spent inputting notes into Sibelius.

Thursday 11 October 2001

Ah, the joys of scholarly life: a day (well, half a day) spent in the rare books and manuscripts room at the National Library or Scotland. Once I got going, I really wanted to spend a week, just patiently trawling through material, picking up leads here, spotting quirky tunes there, and slowly building up a cripplingly expensive photocopying order to leave behind. I thought I'd lost the bug for interacting with old pieces of paper, but being back in there I can really see the attractions of that way of life. But for me, never having been a very convincing academic, it has to remain an occasional pleasure. Perhaps if I retire in 30-odd years I'll think of a nice little research project to keep me amused. Today I was having a last minute look at some manuscripts with a view to filling a gap in the 29 November concert, and to giving the proposal for our CD of the Earl of Kelly's music a bit more variety. 

Meanwhile we've got ourselves one more 100% violinist for the 15th, so we're just a viola player short - a short viola player would do. Marie spent yesterday delivering brochures around town in the hope of getting us an audience.  On the train I've been getting somewhere with our application to the Scottish Arts Council for some dosh towards recording The Gentle Shepherd, and Calum rang to say he's just spent some time with Paddy McAloon, and the Prefab Sprout project is back on the rails again. 

After some years of intense secrecy, I've started giving people my mobile number, because last week I got a tiny new phone that vibrates.  I keep the ringer turned off, and pick the call up only if I feel like talking to the person whose name appears on the screen when my trouser pocket vibrates - this has the added advantage of not pissing off an entire train carriage (or the rare books room of the National Library) with some nauseating ring tone every time someone calls.

I'm hoping to fall asleep in bed at some point this week.  So far the tally is: Son's bedroom floor 2, Living room sofa 1, Bed 0.

Wednesday 10 October 2001

I did a brief radio interview for the BBC yesterday to plug the concerts - it was one of those 'I just happened to be in the building' moments. If I hadn't been around, they'd probably have gone to the canteen and interviewed the third assistant vision mixer on 'What's my Sheepdog?'.

Can you detect the slightly weary tone? I'm not really, it's just that three months ago we had two violinists and two viola players booked for the 15 November concert, and now for a variety of reasons only one of them is a 100% certainty, and she wasn't even one of those booked originally (and will have to fly in on the morning of rehearsals from Montreux - let's hope the early morning flight from Geneva still exists by then).  Well, musicians' brains, diaries and fingers can get more addled than most people's I suppose, and none of this is insurmountable by any means, but I would like to know who's going to be playing.  Marie now has to do some frantic phone-chasing, while I bite my nails.  

Also, our bedroom curtains fell out of the 1920s plaster wall this morning, so tonight I've been refixing the rail to the wall while listening to an old Peter Blegvad album. I'm prepared to suspend my usual zero tolerance for singer-songwriters in his case as he's brilliant - I once took Loudon Wainwright III and his daughter swimming at Glasgow's Western Baths (at his request ...) and asked for news of Mr Blegvad, as they'd had dinner with him the previous evening. 'You know his problem', replied Loudon, 'he's too good'.  I think he's a visiting fellow at the University of Warwick at the mo - check out his peerless cartoons at www.leviathan.co.uk and a familiarly poignant musician's tale in Vanities.

Monday 8 October 2001

I sat up until 2am last night putting the parts together for the first two concerts in November.  Being able to print out most of the performance material straight from the computer is a great luxury after years of scissors, paste, Tipp-ex and photocopying.  I managed to find everything except the fiddle parts for the Bocchi cantata, which disappeared after a radio broadcast in August - so I'll have to dig out the old hand-written masters of those.  When I'd finished, the driving rain outside had stopped so I went out to the garden where it was surprisingly mild and calm.  If everything hadn't been soaking wet, I'd have taken a book out and read for a while before going to bed, but anyway it felt inappropriate to be relishing the peace and quiet when our government was raining Cruise missiles down on Afghanistan.

The brochures arrived on Friday and they look terrific - I met Marie this morning, who has come up with an exhaustive and exhausting list of places to put them.  The list of things to be done in the next couple of weeks grows ever longer, and the time in which to do them shrinks just as quickly - the temptation for me in these situations is always to do something totally different, usually making a cup of tea and putting on some loud music in the kitchen.  For example, rather than deal with the many challenges thrown up a week before the Gentle Shepherd performances in August, I decided to go to the gym for the first time ever, and I'm now hooked.  Displacement? 

But today I did manage to talk to Linn Records and the Scottish Arts Council about possible ways to record The Gentle Shepherd (well, let's be honest, possible ways to pay for it), I checked with the National Library of Scotland how long it would take to call up the manuscripts I want to see on Thursday, I found the missing Bocchi violin parts and I marked them up from memory.  Oh yes, and I did half a day's work at the BBC as well, mostly answering some unusually intelligent listener correspondence about film music. There was a mention of our concert series in today's Herald, describing me as ConCal's 'mastermind and harpsichordist'.  I've started so I'll finish. 

Thursday 4 October 2001

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.  That's not to say I've not been busy - I've been overseeing the design and printing of the brochure for the November concerts, and putting together the notation (I can never bring myself to call a pile of printed paper 'music').  I've just spent two hours printing out parts, which is much more satisfying than it sounds.  And I've done some practice.  But not much.

There was a great review of the CD in Early Music Review, which flopped onto my doorstep this morning, and a more reflective (and lengthy) review of The Gentle Shepherd which was very complimentary about the music if less so about other aspects of the show.  I spoke to Liz Kenny on the phone tonight: she thought it was a bit miserable how many reviews have complained about the basis of the production (it wasn't staged), when that was clearly a given with the budget available.  I don't mind really: they're just reflecting what it felt like to be in the audience, which is the whole point.  The CD review is on the press page.

I spent some of last week writing a grant application for the Scottish Arts Council: not for a baroque project, but a contemporary music one.  The problem I have with these sorts of applications is that to look good they have to have a theme, and unlike theatre or literature, music isn't about anything other than itself - try and describe what it's about and you get as many descriptions are there are listeners.  So short of adding on a section involving community fart-lighting in Shetland or the majesty of wave power or something, it's difficult to sell a project that just involves making interesting music.

On Monday morning I went to Edinburgh to deliver the application (having sat up until 3am writing the thing) with the intention of visiting the National Library of Scotland while I was there.  For once I didn't phone first, and I arrived in the foyer to be met with a notice telling me it was closed for the week.  Oops.

Saturday 22 September 2001

It's turned out to be a very busy week.  There's been the ongoing task of putting music onto the computer for November, a bit of chasing around preparing publicity materials, trying to find a box office to take us on, alerting journalists, that sort of thing.  I'm still working on the final details of the programmes as well, filling up the odd gap - usually I make concerts too long, but I think I've erred too far the other way this time so I'm looking for extra music that we haven't done before.

My expected visit to the National Library of Scotland went for a burton on Wednesday because I spent a fascinating hour or two at Newhall in West Lothian, where Ramsay apparently wrote The Gentle Shepherd.  The current resident of the house, which is set in spectacular and idiosyncratic grounds, invited me to have a look round with a view to some sort of open air event.  Hidden in the glen are two stone plaques set into the rocks, with engraved on them the prologues to the first two scenes.  And sure enough, they're set at perfect places to perform those very scenes.  If you follow the burn up the glen, there's also the pool described by Peggy in scene two, and it's every bit as inviting as she says it is.  I managed to resist the urge to jump in, and made it to Edinburgh just in time to get soaked in torrential rain, arriving on the doorstep of the Scottish Arts Council dripping wet for my meeting with Helen, our ever-supportive Music Officer.

Last night I went to see a 'new work season' at the Arches - seven different collaborations between individuals and groups, each set in a different performance space.  There was everything from a wonderful trapeze artist who I could happily have watched all night, and a very funny two-hander theatre piece based on safety demonstrations, to some quite staggering displays of the triumph of hope over lack of talent.  The needle on my pretentious-wankometer hit the stops a couple of times.  Cnut were there too, doing a Vienna 1901 cabaret as the two Gustavs, Mahler and Klimt, with two dancing girl hostesses.  That was just weird, but they did a great song about ointment.  Andrew McKinnon was milling around in the audience, so we spent the evening passing wry comments on this and that, and cooking up ideas for future theatrical collaborations - watch this space.   

Tuesday 18 September 2001

There are some jobs which start out looking terribly simple and straightforward, and end up as never-ending labyrinths of complex activity.  For example, the simple note to myself 'check November concert programmes' has turned into a research odyssey taking in (so far) three libraries.

On Thursday, Mhairi is going on Radio 4's Woman's Hour to plug Mungrel Stuff.  She's already given her copies away, so tonight I sent her the liner notes so that she can swot up.  

Thursday 13 September 2001

I'm still inputting music into Sibelius: now I've got on to some Scots song arrangements by Pietro Urbani.  We used one in The Gentle Shepherd, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, so we'll try out some more in November.  We got another good Mungrel review, in the Independent on Sunday: eminently quotable, and now on the press page.  I shouldn't admit this, but I really didn't expect this record to get reviewed well - it's taken so long to get it released, that I've become more and more preoccupied with the bits that could be obvious targets for a churlish critic, and I've tended to forget that the good bits are easily the most distinctive things we've ever done on record.

I was talking to Olli Virtaperko in Helsinki this afternoon, and he was enthusing about his Ensemble Ambrosius's new album, still to be released.  I'm trying to get them some gigs in Scotland early next year - they play Frank Zappa on baroque instruments, and with wonderful flair.  Zappa always struck me as a musician who kept his emotions well hidden - everything was kept at an ironic distance - but played on the old instruments which breathe and have a life of their own, his music actually becomes very moving and beautiful.  Their first record 'The Zappa Album' is on BIS, and it's great.  Besides being a mean baroque cellist, Olli also sings in Finland's biggest rock band, Ultra Bra.  What more recommendation do you need?

Tuesday 11 September 2001

Everything got overtaken by the news today - I found a mindless task to do while trying to take it all in: putting a Johann Stamitz Symphony onto the computer for one of November's concerts.

There was a nice surprise in the mail - Mhairi sent me a copy of the review of Mungrel Stuff in last week's Sunday Times, and it's a gem.  I'm not one of those people who loftily refuses to read reviews, but I always make sure I've got my own opinion worked out before I do.

Saturday 8 September 2001

I've been keeping this diary for a year now, and just like last year I've hit the same post-Edinburgh Festival phase of not much happening in the immediate future, but lots of planning ahead to be done.  

By phone and email this week, there's been a fair amount of what might be called 'post-match analysis' of The Gentle Shepherd: I think the consensus is that while it was great to do, we didn't exactly set new standards for group cohesion - we felt more like a bunch of disparate people gathered together than a single-minded group.  So I'm re-thinking our November dates with that in mind.  

I found time to be an audient this week, when I went to a great gig by  accordion player Karen Tweed, who'd gathered a English/Scandinavian band, including Timo Alakotila and Timo Myllykangas from the Finnish fiddle band JPP, and Maria Kalaniemi.   In the late 1980s I met the group Tallari at a festival in Yorkshire, and I've been a bit of a fan of that Finnish Sibelius Academy-based folky stuff ever since.  Also, Karen is enough of an XTC fan to have persuaded the Poozies to record 'Love on a Farmboy's Wages' a long time ago, so she is clearly a woman of impeccable taste. 

Last night I was playing piano in a session for a TV docu-drama called 'The Tartan Pimpernel' about the gay Islay-born minister of the Scots Kirk in Paris at the outbreak of WW2 (this may only be partially correct, I wasn't paying that much attention at the vital moment).  It was great just to be a session player, sat there with headphones on, not being responsible for anything other than my own playing.  A lot of the cues were done in one unrehearsed sight-reading take, and when the tape wasn't running (yes I know it's not tape any more, but what do you say, "when the hard disk wasn't writing"?) we played all manner of things to while away the time, including a glorious rendition of Elmer Bernstein's 'Magnificent Seven' theme on accordion, bass, fiddle and piano.  Yul Brynner comes over the hill wearing a kilt.

I had time for a chat with the director at the end about some of his forthcoming projects, including the complete Bach organ works for television (honestly), and the possibility of Concerto Caledonia appearing on celluloid.  Yes I know this sounds ridiculous, but it could be perfectly plausible and I'm not telling you why.

Saturday 1 September 2001

At last a day off, and rather than stay at home on the one day I don't have to go to Edinburgh, I went back there again to the opening of a friend's exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery.  Sandra Davie's husband Joe (another artist) did the covers of our last two CDs, so it was good to see him at last and say thanks, as most of our communication's been done through the record company.  And we bought a wonderful, and huge, painting of the Sound of Harris by Anna Strachan for our bedroom, after some discussion on what sacrifices we'd have to make to pay for it.  That's Christmas presents and an October holiday out the window ...

There was much amusement on Thursday, as over the last week or two I've been getting a bit narked by Michael Tumelty's habit of dragging me into his Edinburgh Festival concert reviews in the Herald, usually to disagree with me about something.  So when a friend told me I'd made it into his review of the Kuijkens' recital, I thought 'oh here we go again', only to read the following: 'it became difficult to resist the vision of what one of today's younger, more buccaneering harpsichordists - such as David McGuinness - might have made of such a tasty dish of notes.'  Ha ha ha - there's nothing like a bit of public flattery to get you on someone's good side.  He sought me out later on Thursday morning to check I wasn't pissed off !  

My name also made it onto the new website of wonderful Glasgow band Cnut (pronounced "k-noot" as in the king).  Not that I've done much for them apart from tell everyone I meet how great I think they are.  www.cnutonline.com 

Now then - better get on with planning and publicising November's concert dates.  Unfortunately I have a month's worth of unpaid bills, unchased invoices, and general detritus lying around to be cleared up.  Paddy McAloon was on Jonathan Ross's radio show this morning plugging his new album - reminded me I must chase that Prefab Sprout project up as well.  Maybe I'll just mow the lawn, if it stops raining.

Wednesday 29 August 2001

I still feel a bit like I've been hit by a brick after last week, but I'm gradually regaining what passes for normal consciousness. The performances were great fun - selling out the Queen's Hall twice in one day is quite a nice feeling - and the band played great. Mhairi and Jamie both gave exceptional performances, and the other cast members varied from really excellent to, well, less than excellent. Reflecting on this the morning after, I realised that I've had a few years to build up a group of players who I know can handle the material: it requires fluency in baroque performance practice, a feel for a good jam session, and a lot of discipline. To assemble the group, I have to book them months in advance, and in Chris's case fly him across the ocean. By contrast, I don't think there's already an established group of actors out there with their skills honed ready for performing 18th century Scots verse drama (please correct me if I'm wrong), so gathering a consistent cast is always going to be difficult. Actors will not commit to such a small project far in advance, because they'll always hang on in case they get offered some television work in the interim!

Anyway, there were lots of interested people in the audience including a contingent from Carlops, one of the cast members from Tyrone Guthrie's 1949 production, and some early music bods. Someone sent the company flowers after the first show because they'd enjoyed it so much, which was very sweet.

For reasons that I can't be bothered explaining, the following morning I was back in the Queen's Hall, and had the good fortune to sit in the hall all by myself while the Quatuor Mosaiques played through Mozart's wonderful A major quartet (is it K.464?). If anyone knows of a better way to spend a morning when you're completely exhausted, I want to hear of it. It was bliss. 

Tony Kime recorded both shows with his truck, so now I'm going to trawl through the CDs looking for short sections which would form a demo to persuade someone of the benefit of funding a studio recording of the whole thing.  

After all the effort to get the Mungrel Stuff CD out in time for the performances, it wasn't there for sale at the hall.  Haven't had time to find out why yet.  

There's a little video snippet of us and Mhairi doing the Bocchi Scots Cantata at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/edinburgh/index.shtml - click on the screen for Wednesday, and we're about two-thirds of the way through the clip.  Mr McFall's Chamber have their own clip on Monday's programme, in which they're playing my children's toys: I must get them back sometime before the kids notice they're missing.

Saturday 25 August 2001

I'm far too tired to write anything more than the fact that I'm too tired to write a proper diary entry.  I'll catch up next week - the Gentle Shepherd performances are tomorrow.  I went to sit in the garden for a few minutes' peace tonight, and opened the Guardian guide to find a picture of Mhairi smiling out and a nice couple of columns recommending the show. Liz Kenny asked me yesterday if I'd sold my the soul to the devil - 'you know, being able to play like that with your lifestyle'.  What can she mean?

Wednesday 22 August 2001

Just back from Edinburgh. We were playing in a venue with a glass roof on a sunny day - not the best way to keep baroque instruments in tune - and there wasn't time to tune the harpsichord before the soundcheck, so that was a bit of a waste of time.  Still, at times like this you grit your teeth and get on with it: it's useful to mark out the physical and musical space, even if the horrific intonation makes you sound like a toddlers' youth orchestra trying to tune up.  

The broadcast was to start at 5, with our slot at 5.35, so after a relaxing ice cream with Liz, Adrian and Mhairi, I got back to the greenhouse-cum-venue at 4.50.  Someone else's soundcheck had over-run hugely and the harpsichord still hadn't been tuned - what's more, Roy was now busy tuning for the BT Scottish Ensemble who were going on first.  Memories of our Rome experience from March [see the diary archive for an account of that nightmare] came back to haunt me, so I suggested we abandon ship and get them to play the CD instead - there's no point in sounding awful on the radio.  Then a solution presented itself, which was to get the harpsichord out of there in the few remaining minutes, stick it on some chairs, and then Roy could tune it in the foyer while the BTs did their stuff. So it all went OK in the end.  I didn't get to say 'arse' on air, but Sean the presenter did a little bit later, so I don't really mind.  Forgot to plug the CD though - too busy thinking about the tuning.  

The piece appeared in the Scotsman today - only a couple of niggly factual errors of a historical nature, which isn't bad going: here it is. You'll have to find a copy of the paper to see the photo.

Tuesday 21 August 2001

Today is the calm, and then the rush, before the storm.  I've spent the day going through all the music thinking about cues, instrumentation, and what it actually sounds like.  Now that it's all in my head I can't wait to hear it for real.  The list of music cues runs to eight pages, so it's going to be a frantic rehearsal period, but better that than have us all sitting around not doing much.  Tonight I have to formulate some sort of rehearsal schedule, and sort out a few notational bits and pieces. I've been doing all the paperwork to the strains of the Super Furry Animals CD, so it's probably forever imprinted in my memory now with songs about 18th century shepherds.

This afternoon Roy came over to load the harpsichord into the church ready for tomorrow morning, and I got my photo taken with it for tomorrow's Scotsman.  Press photos aren't quite so much of an ego-trip as publicity shots: I suppose for a newspaper a striking image is more important than any reflection of me and my sparkling personality.  So I gave up trying to look inspired or amused, and settled for looking a bit gormless as part of an interesting photograph.

Marie brought over some copies of the new CD, which looks rather good.  I was expecting a darker blue for the background colour of the cover, but Joe Davie's mongrel looks suitably distinguished. Now it's time to get out and sell the things.  Radio 3 here we come tomorrow. 

Sunday 19 August 2001

We're now on the home straight before The Gentle Shepherd - time for me to get my head down and make lots of small musical decisions, having made most of the big ones.  Before rehearsals on Thursday, I'll also have seen most of the actors individually to work on their songs.  Both shows are now sold out.

The Mungrel Stuff CD has arrived from the factory, and I should get to have one in my hand tomorrow at some point.  So when we go on In Tune on Radio 3 on Wednesday we'll have something to plug after all.  We'll be playing live, and the show is streamed in real time at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 1700-1930 BST - the quality's not bad as these things go, and they're going to put some video up there too.  I don't know if I'll have to do any talking: if so, this will be another opportunity to say 'arse' on the radio, which pleases the childish side of my sense of humour.  A few years ago I was presenting 'Composer of the Week' (on Muffat) and had innocently put the word 'smartarse' into one of my trails.  The evening it went out I was rehearsing with the SCO, and one of the chorus came over to me in the tea break: 'You're on the radio this week, aren't you?' 'Yes.' 'You said "arsehole" on Radio 3.' 'No I didn't'.  Mr McFall's Chamber are playing on Monday's In Tune: I had a call from Robert on Friday asking if they could borrow some of my kids' toys for them to play on 'Square Dance for Eight Egyptian Mummies'.

I bumped into photographer Clive Barda at the Queen's Hall last week - I hope I can persuade him to come along to our last rehearsal next Sunday, as I've always loved his pictures of musicians at work.  Meanwhile, tomorrow Marie and I are meeting Tom Laurie to finalise the business end of our Glasgow concerts in November.

Monday 13 August 2001

When I got home this afternoon, a cylindrical package which had come in the mail was waiting on my desk, marked 'FAO Chris Norman', from David and Hamish Moore. If my hunch is correct, then what's in it is the first Scottish smallpipes chanter to be built in modern times (if ever) at pitch a'=415Hz: for The Gentle Shepherd of course.  Our afternoon performance has now sold out completely, and there's only restricted view seating left for the evening one.  I wish this happened every time we played.

Over the weekend I was too tired to do any serious work, so in what idle moments I had, I replaced all the audio clips on the website with better quality mp3s. It reminded me that I was going to make a little montage of out-takes from each record and put them up as well - maybe in September I might have time to do this.  I wanted to put a secret track before the beginning of track 1 on 'Colin's Kisses' with a load of out-takes and messing around on it, but the mastering software couldn't do it.  Or perhaps that was Linn's kind way of telling me it was just a dumb idea.

A friend asked me yesterday if I ever had to escape and listen to other stuff in those periods when I'm working in classical music all the time - 'Constantly' was my reply.  As risk of sounding like one of those people who posts their entire record collection on the net, currently at the top of the CD piles around the house are ...

Lene Lovich 'Stateless' - I finally bought this in LA, only 23 years late.  It features a couple of Jimme O'Neill songs with gloriously simple and to-the-point lyrics.  My favourite is probably 'Telepathy', which starts: "I know what ya done/I saw ya in my crystal/I saw you making love/I'm gonna get my pistol/Telepathy's/gonna be the death of me" which pretty much tells you all you need to know in about 10 seconds.  And I bought the new Super Furry Animals CD today - on a cursory listen, it sounds like some dull songs brightened up with a stunning production job, but I haven't really given it the time of day properly yet. [I have now, and like it a lot] Then there's the last two Abba albums which I never got around to listening to in the 1980s, and the Naxos recording of Muffat concerti grossi that's just come out.  The playing on that is really pretty rough, which would explain why the recording has sat on a shelf for 8 years before release.  And I listened to most of XTC's 'Nonsuch' on the train this afternoon.  'Bungalow' and 'Books are Burning' on that record still get me excited even after hundreds of listens: I tried not to let it show on my face too much in case the people sitting opposite me thought I was thinking of something quite different.  Keep hands in view at all times when listening to music on headphones in a public place, just to be on the safe side ...

Wednesday 8 August 2001

The good news is that the technical fault on the CD has been located and dealt with. The bad news is that this has put the release date back - I still don't know exactly when it'll hit the shops, but Linn promise us we'll have some copies by the gigs on the 26th. This always happens - when we launched the Clerk CD, the shipment got stuck in a Securicor warehouse and the McAllister Matheson crew, who'd come to the concert specifically to sell CDs, had to give out bits of paper like IOUs instead.  Colin's Kisses arrived from the factory on the day of its launch. I'd hoped that this time the thing would actually be in the shops by the time we promoted it, but instead we'll be doing bits of it live on the radio and talking it up before it physically exists.  Also, I just like the security of having the end product in my hand, but even then it always has a strange sense of anti-climax because CDs are such tiny little things. 

There was a piece in Monday's Scotsman about my trip to LA, filled with made-up quotes that made me sound like a complete tosser. I wouldn't have minded, but they printed my photo as well. Win some, lose some I suppose.

Sunday 5 August 2001

It's been a week of late nights, working until 2 or 3am every night on the scores. It's nice to work free of distractions, but I've been living on three or four hours' sleep for a couple of weeks now and it does catch up with me after a while. The only person I can think of who worked consistently on that amount of sleep was Margaret Thatcher and I can't say she's one of my role models. 

Today I've been in Edinburgh with Ben Lane printing it all out and preparing the parts. Five hours sweating over Sibelius and a hot laser printer, and now I have a heavy load of paper in my rucksack to take home. There are still a few gaps left in the music, but I don't really mind as it's good to leave some space for some magic to happen - there's no point in filling the rehearsal room with talented people if you don't give them a chance to think. I played Ben 'Clout the Caldron' from the new CD (that number's in the show as well) and his reaction was 'it's a bit hardcore, isn't it?'.  Hardcore Baroque - hmm.

I met Andrew for breakfast on Friday and we had a chance to talk through some logistical things, among them the possibility of having a couple of stuffed sheep on stage for people to sit on. No hang on, did I imagine that bit?

Tomorrow I'll go through today's mountain of paper with Marie for sending out to the band, and then I've got a press interview to do at lunchtime. I'm hopeless at sounding enthusiastic about projects until they're ready - my job at this point is largely concerned with all the things that aren't right yet, so selling the glories of the finished project requires a major mental shift. It would be much easier to talk about all the problems, although by the time the piece appears in print, they'll all have been resolved (I hope).

I had a call yesterday which may lead to another November gig for us - could end up being a busy month. Meanwhile, I was saddened to hear the news last week of the death of John Walters, legendary radio producer of John Peel's Radio 1 show through the 70s, and genial TV and radio presenter himself. One of the obituaries said that his role in the studio as a producer was largely one of keeping everyone entertained - it's as good a way as any other to get the best out of creative people.

I don't listen to baroque music much these days (don't know if I ever did) but I'm sitting on the train listening to the Handel record Kate Bott and Emma Kirkby made with Roy Goodman a few years ago 'The Rival Queens', and it's a delight. The music reaches out and takes you gently by the arm, rather than by the throat or the genitals. Be kind to yourself and buy one (Hyperion CDA66950). I remember bumping into Ninian in the BBC one day a couple of years ago, and him telling me about this great Handel record he'd just bought and how wonderful the bass playing was - 'Cecelia someone'. 'Yeah that's right,' I replied, 'she was playing in the band last week, that date you couldn't do'.

Oh great, I've been joined by a noisy drunk singing Protestant sectarian songs at the top of his voice while listening to a flute band full blast on his walkman, occasionally miming along on his bottle of Buckfast (I'm not making this up). Isn't Scotland wonderful?

I heard the other day that a Haydn concert that Catherine Bott and I gave last year is being repeated on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 9 September at 1830: if you're outside the UK it's available online at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.  It was my broadcast debut on fortepiano and I was unusually nervous, so I could have enjoyed it more, but I think it has its moments.

Wednesday 1 August 2001

An updated master of the Mungrel Stuff CD was awaiting my return - I'm glad I listened through to it as there was one irritating little technical fault, which I'm not going to describe here in case it makes it onto the first pressing.  Find it for yourself, if you can.

Since then it's been the big push to get the Gentle Shepherd scores and parts ready, working well into the night.  Having been jet-legged, working late and not getting much sleep doesn't feel too unusual.  

© 2001 David McGuinness
all opinions are those of the author - you don't have to share them