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David
McGuinness's diary Thursday 28 April 2005 Inspired by a short phone call to DG before he headed for Halifax airport tonight, I had a go at playing harmonium and melodica simultaneously. It works! We'll try it out in front of an audience at the Sage on Sunday afternoon ... Now I have to give some attention to the repertoire for our Dec 3 concert in Perth. Since last weekend's news, creative motivation has been difficult. Sunday 24 April 2005 Yesterday I went into town to meet Norman Motion who was kindly acting as delivery man for my Estey organ which Alistair Edmondson has been rebuilding. And it sounds great. You can even play fast on it and the notes all speak, a consequence of the wind supply now being 'tight as a drum', to quote Mr Edmondson. I also discovered last night that the cheap PZM mic I bought in Tandy in 1991 to experiment with inside my harpsichord, is quite effective laid inside it. It will get its first public airing next weekend in Gateshead. But Norman also brought the news of Kevin McCrae's death on Thursday. Until last year, Kevin was sub-principal cello of the SCO and I have too many entertaining memories of him to recount here. He wore his considerable talent and versatility lightly: as well as being a seriously fine cellist, he was a great continuo player, he could improvise complex harmonic and rhythmic accompaniments to fiddle tunes with jaw-dropping fluency, and recently he was becoming just as well known as an arranger and conductor than as a player: Eddi Reader, Dougie Maclean and Brian McNeill have all benefited from his skill. In the early 90s when I started playing in the orchestra regularly, he was one of the few fellow Scots in the band, and his attitude was an inspiration: he always applied himself to the job in hand with complete professionalism, but he never let go of the idea that it should be fun too. We would habitually share jokes throughout rehearsals, one line at a time in the windows of opportunity when we weren't playing; when necessary, he would keep track of the Aberdeen football scores on a pocket television resting on his music stand; and he made the work a good social experience: it was always a pleasure to show up for an SCO rehearsal and be greeted with 'Oi! It's Slasher! Great, this should be a laugh', and watch Ursula Smith's smiling exasperation. Working with him was a joy even when recently his life's battles led him to be less rumbustuous. He was such a valuable person to have around; that he has finally lost his fight is profoundly sad. Monday 18 April 2005 Anyway ... this is all at the end of a very enjoyable three days in New York so I'm going to stop moaning and recount some of that. Matt and I had our Met Museum gig on Friday in the Patrons Lounge. Despite feeling a bit under-prepared (though it went very well in the end) my main memories of the morning before the concert don't include frantic practising, but rather getting my first ever vielle lesson from Paul Krieger, in front of a mirror so that I could keep my bow horizontal, and drinking tea on the roof, looking down on the UN and the East River and across to the Chrysler building. Bracing New York sunshine - great. Matt eventually showed up with Sandra-Lynne and we rehearsed for a bit, ate well and completely failed to find a cab big enough to take Matt's theorbo, so Paul came to the rescue and gave us a lift. The Met patrons seemed more animated and sociable than I remembered them from last year's gig with Chris and Jamie. What's more, they laughed at all our jokes and listened with real attentiveness. And there were lots of people with informed questions at the end: my favourite was the slightly awed 'How many years have you been working together?' 'Um, a few hours in total actually, we've probably spent more time in the pub than we have playing music.' Matt and I only ever shared a stage once before and that was about 7 years ago I think, playing Muffat in a band that Katherine put together for a viola festival. What comes across as rhythmic symbiosis is probably the sound of us trying to put one another off, or make each other laugh. A wonderful meal in the Museum itself, and an encounter with a Suzuki bass melodica (you can bend low notes by almost a semitone and it feels a bit like playing a tenor sax) rounded off the day. On Saturday it took me about 4 hours to get up, but that time included a phone conversation with the dancer and choreographer Megan Williams, the first time we've spoken in about 10 years. When she was dancing in Mark Morris's group, we once spent a week going into Edinburgh schools of varying degrees of roughness getting kids to dance, while I played the piano and occasionally joined in the warmups or discussions of Ice-T and the relevance of the LA riots to Craigmillar. When I finally made it outside on Saturday I wasn't fit for much other than wandering down 5th Avenue in a 'Hey, I'm in New York City in the spring sunshine' kind of a way, so it was just as well that Matt rang and persuaded me to join them to eat on the sidewalk on the West Side. Perfect weather for it. Later on I dropped in on Renee Barrick in the organ loft at St Jean Baptiste, and we went across to the Museum so that I could renew my acquaintance with the 1720 Cristofori piano, an incredible instrument with a huge personality that imposes itself on every note you play. Music by Bach that I thought I knew, came out completely different, and Scarlatti sonatas worked a treat. Some other music it would simply refuse to cooperate with: Rameau was definitely a no-go area, for one. We agreed that the Cristofori was definitely female and probably a cat. Then we had a post-concert beer, 24 hours late, in a strangely deserted bar (Saturday night, where was everyone?). Yesterday morning Chris came over to try out some sonatas by Barsanti (with a 50% success rate) and some by General John Reid, who sounds like he should be a country singer but actually founded the music department at Edinburgh University (25%). If you played his music on oboes in the concert hall in Edinburgh University, the concert programme would be a Reed Reid Read at the Reid. But Chris wants to start a group to play early classical music, and serve hot chocolate in the interval. The caterers would be the Rococo Co. Cocoa Co. And the guy who answers the phone at the office would have to be called Rocco Coe of course. So when he picked up the phone he'd have to say - oh you work it out. We had lunch at Kelley and Ping in Soho with Jody and Evangeline, and I went round the corner to the Apple Center and finally joined the 21st century by buying an iPod mini. The sound quality isn't a patch on CD but as gadgets go it's pretty good really - changes my whole view of downloading music. And the headphone amp is nice and powerful. Didn't even think of trying the dodgy white earbuds that come with it though. Already loaded there are the first edits of Alison's Geminiani CD which somehow sprouted 20 minutes of harpsichord solos. For most of those my reaction was 'why did I play it like that?' but I'm sure there were perfectly good reasons at the time. That's the thing about recording - it's not easily updated. It's a very nice record though, there's something very welcoming about it: I think I'd listened to the cello sonatas three times over before I even got to New York on Thursday night. One more thing: Dick and Dom's Ask the Family - what a disaster. How dare they take my TV heroes and put them in front of this shambolic inept embarrassing mess. Grim. Friday 1 April 2005 The editing is coming along nicely, hampered only by the mysterious disappearance of some audio from the hard disk, which meant I had to redo some tricky edits in 'Road to Sanaig'. I still don't know which tracks will stay and which will go but they're all entertaining to listen to, so I think the decisions will be based on some over-riding aesthetic principle (don't laugh) rather than quality control. Alison dropped in to listen to the work-in-progress yesterday morning, and to have a quick go on the trampoline in the garden. I got a text from her a couple of hours ago saying she's just left her suitcase on a bus in Verona. Um ... Apparently Sarah Kennedy has been playing the Kellie disc on Radio 2 all week which is great news: on Wednesday 'Death is now my only treasure' was in between Elton John and Al Stewart, and yesterday the C minor quartet was sandwiched by The Carpenters' 'Close to You' and Natalie Imbruglia. Further evidence of our new-found establishment status (and not an April fool joke, if you were wondering). Monday 28 March 2005 It's a bank holiday, so it's a day of unrelenting rain. Oh well. I now have first edits of almost every track of the Lion CD and it comes to about 84' of music, so some weeding is necessary as well as desirable. There's still some mixing to do and the vocals to record, but it's taking shape nicely. Actually it sounds fantastic but I'm too tired to enthuse properly in print. Another time. It's a strange feeling having the music collected together: on the one hand it's very exciting hearing it take its overall shape, but on the other it's a bit deflating having two years' worth of scattered bits of work come together in something as two-dimensional as a CD. I had a chance to think a bit about
music today for forthcoming I've just finished reading Craig Thompson's wonderful Blankets, and today picked up this study of Chris Ware's work. Some books are difficult to put down, but this one is irresistible to pick up repeatedly. Saturday 26 March 2005 I'm now beginning to devote some energy to upcoming projects: I have a pile of first edits for the Lion CD (SADN II) to listen to, I've peeked at the recording budget for The Gentle Shepherd, and I'm thinking about repertoire for gigs in Perth. One of these days I might actually sit down at an instrument and play some music. Speaking of which, David G and I will be playing at the Fiddles on Fire festival in Gateshead in a few weeks: details here. I wonder if my harmonium will be back from the menders by then. The Lion CD will be an interesting one: there are some seriously down and dirty fiddle tunes to be sure, but there are also vast swathes of deep melancholia which are best not interrupted with happy 'up' stuff. My most recent idea was to divide the CD into an 'up' side and a 'down' side, but I'm now wondering whether it should start with a big 'up' and gradually descend into a melancholic depression by the end. I think it will make good late night listening. Sunday 20 March 2005 You should be able to hear my interview with Janice Forsyth here for a few days yet: click on Arts Show - Fri and I'm about 30 minutes in. And we got a nice review from Ivan Hewett on the Culture Show on Thursday: the other item reviewed was the Royal Opera House's Madam Butterfly, so we're clearly now an establishment presence. (joke) I've been enjoying more Haydn as a happy audient: last night at the university the Festetics Quartet somehow managed to sound nothing like a string quartet at all: they sounded like four people playing Haydn's music. It was great. And then this afternoon Ronald Brautigam gave an absolutely stunning recital on the university's Paul McNulty fortepiano: one of those concerts where you come out refreshed and exhilarated. He finished with the final E flat sonata no.62 which really needs a big nasty English piano rather than a refined Viennese one - he pushed the instrument right to the limit of what it could do, and then when he came off he said to me, grinning: 'how to kill a fortepiano ...'. But now I'm back at my desk tonight trying to clear its piles of paper again, listening with a flask of peppermint tea to a promo copy of the Ivor Cutler Decca re-issues, that was kindly passed my way this week. Sounds like it was recorded yesterday rather than in 1961 (and 1959). Tuesday 15 March 2005 Yet more press on the way - we had a review in the Independent on Sunday, apparently the Culture Show (BBC2) is featuring us on Thursday (I don't know how though), and I'm going on Radio Scotland's Arts Show - snappy titles eh? - on Friday with the excellent Janice Forsyth around 6.30pm. Friday 11 March 2005 A couple of bits of press were brought to my attention yesterday. The Scotsman liked the Bach on Sunday, and Mojo magazine included I Trawl the Megahertz (just) in their 50 most 'out there' albums of all time: 'music to fry your brain'. Now that's a recommendation. later I went to hear Mhairi singing Haydn with David Owen Norris and Sonnerie at the RSAMD today. The first set of Canzonettas was absolutely superb - a treat. I think Anne Hunter liked Haydn rather a lot. Wednesday 9 March 2005 Fiddler Tam is now for sale in our shop at conbrio, and new reviews are in for both this and RRR. I'm getting to my checklist of stuff to do from about a month ago: passport renewal, stationery supplies, computer upgrades, chasing unpaid fees, that sort of thing. The load is lightened by choosing Frescobaldi partite to play with Matt Wadsworth in our London and New York gigs in a few weeks. I've asked him to improvise an accompaniment to one keyboard piece - why shouldn't keyboard players have an accompanist for once? Monday 7 March 2005 A long-awaited day off at the end of four weeks of being a professional musician. Our Kellie CD got a brief but very nice review in the Times on Friday. Yesterday was quite a full day. It wasn't until I was walking on stage at the second half of the afternoon concert that I realised that if I were going to choose an environment in which to play the Bach E major violin and harpsichord sonata for the first time (it's the most difficult of the six, the only one I haven't been playing for years, and the first time I've played any of them with Ruth), then the afternoon after four nights of concerts, to a Queen's Hall Sunday afternoon audience with lots of SCO musicians in it, would be one of the more stressful choices available. But playing in the Queen's Hall has its good sides too: I couldn't find the harpsichord stick, and asked stage manager Shug if he'd seen it around anywhere. 'It got left in Aberdeen about three years ago I think'. After a brief experimentation with a drumstick, he came back a few minutes later with a perfectly fashioned stick that he'd just made out of a bit of dowelling. And Giovanni Antonini's recorder playing was wonderful of course. We'd just about worked out when to follow him, and when to lay down a groove for him to float on top of. I just made it back to Glasgow in time to hear Christophe Coin and his friends from EBL playing Haydn duets and trios with baryton in St Andrews in the Square to a small but entranced audience. What an astonishing noise. You can hear it on Radio 3 on 15 November. But now I'm going to do gentle battle with the piles and piles of paper on my desk, while listening to this: any album that features reggae melodica, and Oliver Hardy singing 'Fresh fish' from the beginning of Towed in a Hole is likely to get an enthusiastic response at this end. Thursday 2 March 2005 Thought for the day: No matter how good a musician you are, if you're going to stand in front of an orchestra, you have to be able either to demonstrate or to anatomise what you want them to do. If you can't, you're in trouble. Anyway, Christophe Coin's cadenzas in the CPE Bach A minor cello concerto were fascinating yesterday. In rehearsal and in the concert, both were paragons of appropriateness, matched in mood, style and content to the piece itself: the concert one went off on a little crazy heavy metal guitar riff at one point and somehow found its way back. 'I thought we'd lost you for a minute there', I said as we left the stage. 'Whew', he gestured in his usual economical fashion. I had excellent fish and chips before the gig in Perth, walking across the railway bridge over the river Tay (joined by a train at one point) as the blue and green light faded from the sky, with snow on the hills. It was freezing cold but it didn't matter. I'm hoping for a similarly memorable seaside fish supper experience in St Andrews tonight. Monday 28 February 2005 But, on the evidence of this morning, being a professional musician sucks. I got up early after a late night, my parents very kindly came over to our place to put the kids to school so that I could get to Edinburgh on time, and then when I got here the rehearsal started with the Haydn symphony. Which I'm not in. So after busting a gut to get here, I'm to spend the next two hours just sitting in the Queens Hall café - writing a grumpy diary entry. Industrial music making: you can shove it. I'll redeem the morning by listening to some session tapes from Nenthorn. later Saturday 26 February 2005 My favourite memorable moment from yesterday (a day which had many) - It's about 11pm, we've done a great concert in the Barony Hall in Glasgow, and have been in the pub for an hour or so. As is usually the case after an hour in the pub, a certain bodily function is necessitated, so I'm standing in the gents doing what comes naturally when a guy appears beside me doing the same thing and says 'Hey, that was really great music tonight.' 'Oh thanks [slightly embarrassed given the unusual circumstances of the conversation].' 'Yeah, and that piece with the cello was amazing, I've never heard anything like it.' 'Well, tell you what, Ursula's sitting upstairs in the bar, why don't you tell her yourself?' 'OK then.' ... ... 'Hey Ursula, I just met this bloke in the bog who thinks you're fantastic ...' Thursday 24
February 2005 Whew. First of two gigs with La Haïm tonight. Purcell suffered a bit from the sudden imposition of an audience (it felt like I was sight-reading, even though we'd been playing the piece all week), but music came to visit several times in the Handel. Ursula Smith brought off a heartbreakingly beautiful cello solo in 'What passion cannot music raise and quell', from which the only conclusion I can sensibly draw is that if you want to become a really exceptional musician, first become a Danish housewife. I can't remember when I last heard so much meaningful music happen in such a short space of time. I just sat on the stage watching her as it all came out, thinking 'where does it come from?' and trying not to look at anyone in case they were as moved as I was. Rehearsals with Emmanuelle have been hugely enjoyable and exhausting, as expected. I think one of the defining things of her approach is that rather than standing outside the music directing it (which is a perfectly acceptable model), she inhabits and participates in the music, and invites you to join her. So she's very unlikely to say 'can the wind be a bit louder at bar 47 the second time?' and far more likely to sing something, and expect you to know what she's singing and what she means by the way she's singing it. She comes across as a dazzlingly talented fellow musician with a carefully thought-out view of the whole piece, rather than as an alien species, as some conductors set out to be. She's also the only conductor who's ever sung in my ear and removed one of my socks in a rehearsal (that was last night, to amuse the chorus). But another reason that working with her is exhausting is that there is never a 'safety zone': a point when you can disengage your imagination while playing, and think 'I'm doing what is required is of me and that is enough'. Such safety zones lead to boring music. It was sheer joy after tonight's gig to sit down with a beer and the Ursulas Leveaux and Smith. Not to reminisce much (although we've been playing together on and off for over a dozen years now), but for me at least, just to bask in the company of some remarkable musicians. Sometimes music leads you into exceptional company. You can hear excerpts from our Kellie CD here. Hooray! Monday 21 February 2005 One of many jobs accomplished over the weekend was writing part of a suitably inflammatory press release to accompany the Kellie CD. I got myself successfully into ranting mode by reading Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn book, which not only takes a whole page to point out how great Dick and Dom are, but also has the funniest index I've ever read. Today begins a fortnight of me moonlighting as an orchestral musician, sort of. Thankfully I start by playing in the SCO for Emmanuelle Haïm, someone who can bring the spirit of chamber music and improvisation into an orchestral rehearsal, no mean feat. For example, I'm not quite sure yet which of us is going to play the largely improvised organ solo in Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day, but it doesn't matter. Rather than being issued with instructions to write into the parts and follow, we're being treated as grown-up musicians and expected to listen, react, and gradually learn what might work. And she can change her mind! Fantastic! But tiring. In the band are a number of familiar faces, including Ursula Smith, back from Denmark to play continuo cello for a week. The singers come tomorrow, so tonight I've been sticking my scores together so that all the notation doesn't land in my lap at a crucial moment. I've been distracted only by a picture arriving in my phone of a nyckelharpa case on the London Underground. That'll be Katherine back from Sweden then. Thanks to Roy, in Edinburgh I've found an instrument technician who professes an interest in reed organs, so before the week is out I'll take the Estey over there and leave it at the Queen's Hall for his attention. Thursday 17 February 2005 Anyway, the PA seemed to sound OK, 'Avec un avocat' in particular went really well, and Élisabeth was delighted, so job done. Tick (Alison's rehearsal signal that it's time to move on to the next piece). After a rather surreal journey via a back door through the Musée ('Help, we're trapped forever in a museum!' 'Welcome to the world of early music, Suzie ...') we made it out on to the street as it began to rain - it's unusually mild for Québec in February, where the streets are still decorated with ice sculptures from the weekend's carnival. Chris, Pierre and Sylvain scattered to various taxis and lifts, and the remaining four of us headed off in a successful search for food and relaxing ambience, and my first beer for a very long time. So there I was, quite oblivious to the conspiratorial discussion of 'deserts' going on between the waiter and Suzie and Betsy, and the next thing I know a becandled birthday cake (which Betsy had smuggled in) and some Veuve Clicquot and glasses appear. Wahey! I don't think I've had a restaurant sing Happy Birthday to me since I was 21. Big smiles.
DMcG and Suzie LeBlanc try out repertoire for a forthcoming jaws harp ensemble album There was just time for a quick burst of present shopping for my kids and then Betsy and I hit the road back to Montréal, in time to hit a serious blizzard for the first hour or so. Not the most pleasant driving experience ever, in fact pretty scary, but it cleared eventually and we only had driving rain to contend with for the last couple of hours. I got to the check in desk just in time. later, on the flight to Glasgow Wednesday 16 February 2005 Coming through immigration on Monday night, the agent had gone all thoughtful on me when I told her where I was going to be playing. "Musée de la Civilisation ... ah ..." "You know it well?" "No," she replied, "I'm just trying to remember if they serve alcohol there." "It's a morning gig." We're here to play at la Bourse Rideau: our agent Élisabeth at Station Bleue assures us that if we come here and play for 20 minutes she can book us at least one tour for next year and probably two. So here we are ...
But now I'm looking out of my bedroom's stained glass window on the Avenue Wilfrid Laurier, at trees and snow (nothing else), and I'm listening to the various bits of practising going on around the house: DG next door, Betsy downstairs, Chris still getting up. Time for breakfast. Monday 14 February 2005 Roy tuning the harpsichord, watched by sinister microphones like something out of HG Wells We recorded all afternoon, six sets of tunes (or was it seven?) including the arses set, a strathspey to precede the polska that precedes 'I see you again', and a great set from the Marshall book which was going to have harmonium in it, but its lung capacity just wasn't up to it. So I played piano along with Alison on Marshall's basslines and listening back to the result was very scary: Gothic nightmare ceilidh band music. In the evening an audience congregated and we took votes on what to play: the resultant set which should have taken 45 minutes or so took an hour and a half, what with the good-natured banter between stage and audience and general enjoyable slackness of attitude all round. We'd already celebrated Tony's retirement from sound engineering with champagne earlier. The evening eventually degenerated into a bit of an impromptu fiddle session before the long drive home. An unusually productive and very happy day. On Saturday we were in St Cecilia's Hall, playing lots of Kellie and plugging the new CD. By mentioning Kellie's role as Sovereign of the Beggar's Benison Anstruther, I got to use the phrase 'tiresome wanker' to the Georgian Concert Society audience, which I guess doesn't happen often. I also got to play my favourite harpsichord in the Russell Collection, the 1755 Kirckman. A great party at Noel's afterwards, and after my first taste of alcohol for over a week I suddenly realised how tired I was at about midnight and all my mental processes began to come apart a little rather like this sentence. But now I'm on my way to Québec via Montréal. Two of the movies on the plane are Vanity Fair, featuring my piano playing, and Sideways, on which composer Rolfe Kent plays guitar and ... melodica. Truly a man of taste and discernment. Thursday 10 February 2005 Yesterday Alison and I managed to waste a valuable hour of rehearsal time by driving to the wrong Linn factory to pick up the Kellie discs - oops. Still, the remaining time was put to very good use. It was particularly interesting (if hard work) rehearsing the Kellie C minor quartet as a quartet with added harpsichord, having recorded it as an orchestral piece. It's barely recognisable now: almost every phrase has a completely different shape. This is very encouraging, as it proves that we are still musicians, and that we're not just following the instructions that we wrote into the copies in the sessions nearly a year ago. In fact, most of the time we're doing pretty much the opposite of what we painstakingly wrote in. Ears 1, Pencils 0. A result. Today we played a lunchtime concert at
Glasgow University, which was rather good fun, with special guest star John
Butt on toy keyboard at the beginning of Norrgården Nyvla. It was a chance
to play some well-worn tunes, but they still have plenty of unexpected hazards
for the unwary. The aleatoric C section of Alexander Don's Strathspey was an
adventure, and we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by rounding the
concert off with a very soggy Szapora. post-concert: 'Can we go and have some tea now?' L-R: DG, KMcG, DMcG, AMcG We spent the whole afternoon in Tchai-ovna. Monday 7 February 2005 Well, we're back in business. Roy arrived with a large van at 10am this morning to load up the harpsichord and digital piano: the ingenious bread-board type carrier he made for the 'piano' some time ago has acquired a luxurious carpet base since its last outing. To my shame, my harpsichord has been living up against the wall (vertically) for a few months, but when lovingly uncovered chez McGillivray père this morning, A was still exactly at 415Hz. The whole thing wasn't in tune of course, but still ... DG flew in at lunchtime, and the three of us picked him up at the airport to amuse ourselves at his inevitable jet-lag. It's a band joke that whenever he works with us, he's in a state of permanent exhaustion. We spent the afternoon playing through lots of new tunes that Kate had packed him off with, as well as revisiting Echidna's Arf and trying out some tunes by Katherine and me. Hers fits in between the two 'arse' tunes I found in the National Library of Scotland a few months ago. This is not a joke: the tunes are called 'Johnny's bare arse' and 'Maggy's covered arse'. Her tune in the middle was a Christmas present and is entitled 'Dr McGuinness'. You can imagine your own scenario that this set might depict. I'm not going to. An afternoon of jamming brought out some nice combinations under the tunes: my purple Yamaha melodica goes well with viola in jigs, and 19th century strathspey basslines work very well on cello with nothing else. At home tonight, the mail had brought a Sibelius upgrade, and a copy of The Beggars Benison: David Stevenson's book on 18th century Scottish sex clubs and their rituals. Given the press release that Linn sent out to an assortment of men's mags about the 6th Earl of Kellie's involvement in one of these, I thought I'd better do some homework. And it will be fun to read it in public places and see what kind of looks I get. Sunday 6 February 2005 Well, today I finally ran out of work avoidance strategies, and starting learning the music for this week. Some such strategies were legitimate (a family outing to Finlaystone in the glorious sunshine; watching Dick & Dom on telly), others were less so (hoovering the car, putting my copy of Ivor Cutler's scandalously out-of-print Privilege LP onto CD so that we can listen to it in transit). I just checked Amazon to see if Privilege was still available, and found that Decca are at along last going to re-issue his 1959-61 recordings in April. About time too. Talking about dusting recordings off the shelf, at one point today I had to resort to getting my copy of SADN out and listening to it, to remind me what to play. By one of those strange coincidences, when we're back in Nenthorn on Friday, it will be two years to the day since we first went there and recorded the quartet bits of SADN in the dark. Driving back from Finlaystone this afternoon I put the car radio on and heard myself laughing with Jamie. It was a fun interview to do but I'm not quite at ease listening to myself yet. You can hear it here for a week or so, our bit's about 12 minutes in. There's a couple of sneak previews of the Kellie disc in there too, which it was very interesting to hear squished to bits by Radio Scotland's compressor - the horns just about survived intact. For the first time ever, we've had a few CD orders going missing before they get to us - if you're expecting a delivery and it hasn't come, drop an email to conbrio and we'll chase it up ASAP. Wednesday 2 February 2005 I'm now down to the last few preparations for next week's concerts and recording: a few tunes are flying around our email accounts. Must remember to prepare tomorrow morning's lecture at the RSAMD as well. Sushil tells me that at the weekend he recorded Alasdair Gray's contributions to the album we played on in December. Can't wait to hear it. And on Monday Ruth Crouch came over for a preliminary rehearsal of the Bach E major sonata we're playing in the Queen's Hall on 6 March. I still have some practice to do; I don't like the feeling of not being as prepared as I should be. And I don't normally listen to recordings of pieces that I'm learning, but I might just invest in Pablo Valetti's new set of these with Celine Frisch: if it's anything like as good as the Café Zimmermann Bach records I'll be very impressed, and it will give me something to listen to en route to Quebec in a couple of weeks. Very sad news of Martyn Bennett's death on Sunday night: a real genuine musician. I remember 8 or 9 years ago asking Dick Lee to record some stuff with Hamish Moore for Radio 3, to go out on Christmas morning. Hamish was troubled with RSI at the time so Dick asked Martyn, who I thought would bring a set of smallpipes. He showed up on a dark rainy December morning at Crichton Church with his fiddle and the highland (war) pipes, which under the stone vaulted ceiling, with Dick wailing away on soprano sax, made a deafeningly obscene noise. It was great. With the addition of Rick Bamford's percussion the three of them set about working out what kind of music would work in the space, and Martyn was always the one listening and tuning in to exactly what would feel right, rather than just playing. When the rest of us thought we were ready to record, he would still be standing quietly, thinking of something better to try, and he was always right. The last I heard from him was when I was a guest on Mary Ann Kennedy's show on Radio Scotland in September - she played the Seal Fisher's Song set from The Red Red Rose, and bits of Suzie's and Chris's albums, and a couple of days later I got an email from her that said 'saw Martyn yesterday and he was demanding to know what "that amazing music" on the show was last week'. We were all very flattered. © 2005 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
concerts:
I practised a bit of Frescobaldi for New York, and thought briefly about
repertoire for the Geminiani CD launch gigs with Alison in May and June.
Alison took this photo of Katherine yesterday: yes, look out world, Katherine
now has a nyckelharpa and is prepared to use it.
And then it all started to get silly as I had to try out my presents of 3 different sized jaws harps, a blues harp and a thumb piano. Various duets ensue. DG almost got 'happy birthday' out of the thumb piano. 
Tony and Eve live there now, and have built a stage that takes up half of the schoolroom, and is now their living room.
But just as I was beginning to think that
it was time to retire Echidna's Arf, that flew along in a rather satisfying and
virtuosic way (much better than the CD), and old chestnuts like Martyrs/O lusty
May don't seem to be getting tired yet. We tried out the new 'arse' set as an
encore with us all walking off as we finish, like a miniature farewell symphony.
And Barney my purple Yamaha melodica got his concert debut, after Eric the green
Angel has developed breathing difficulties. I think he will soon be retired to a
rest home for bewildered mouth-blown free-reed instruments.