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David
McGuinness's diary Wednesday 19 March 2003
This was the view from my doorstep when I got home tonight. As good a way as any to say farewell to this diary for a while. Things are coming together for the next season's projects, but rather than deliver a blow-by-blow account of work in progress, I'll be posting news of how it all develops. So keep checking in ... Monday 17 March 2003 Another meeting with Marie this morning to look at next year's commitments. No matter what happens with the SAC, the orchestral sessions for the Kellie CD, and the Scottish tour with PA and lights etc. are still on, so there's plenty to be getting on with. Now I'm just waiting for everyone to get back to me with their availability for the next year and a half so that we can start thinking about dates. We started editing the Delphian CD last Thursday, and it's sounding really good. Perhaps it's just the shock of hearing it on a really flattering set of hi-fi speakers instead of monitors, but I found it quite a riveting listen. That's a relief. The set of tunes from The Caledonian Muse works itself up from baroque Celtic ambient to full hardcore pub session thrash in the space of 5 minutes or so. Excellent! Wednesday 12 March 2003 I was going to spend today at the computer marking up takes for the Delphian CD, but it was such a beautiful spring-like morning I found myself walking through the park to the RSNO office instead. A couple of weeks ago I agreed to play in a couple of concerts that are coming up with Carl Davis, in the interests of paying off a small portion of my accountant's bill and hopefully finding time to have a chat with the man himself. Ewen at the orchestra sold me the line of 'just a bit of keyboard in some film scores, nothing much', so I said 'OK then, I'll even do it for the pish money you guys pay' and that was that. So I thought I'd take the air this morning, and go and pick up the music so I could give it a look over. I'm playing in 18 numbers, including the piano solos in such gems as Chariots of Fire & Love Story, I get to do my Elton John impersonation on electric piano in Circle of Life, there's Jaws, Doctor Zhivago (my gran would be very proud of this one), other gems such as Windmills of Your Mind and Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong, and a ludicrous arrangement of Lullaby of Broadway. I could go on. When the shock of the sheer tackiness of it all wore off, I realised that once I've learned the notes this will be a really good laugh. How many people would kill to play the Love Story theme on the piano backed by an enormous symphony orchestra? I think I'll hire a Richard Clayderman wig - please come and throw things, rotten fruit or roses according to taste, it's in the Usher Hall on the 28th, and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on the 29th. I can't wait. I also get to play in Moon River, whose Oscar I once picked up from Henry Mancini's piano in LA and held fondly in a sad display of showbiz awe ... Oh yes, if you're near a radio or a computer tomorrow, we're on Music Restored on Radio 3 at 1600 GMT - it should be available on the website for a week or so thereafter. Scroll down to the 16 February for the story of how the music got recorded. Besides the music, it's well worth listening out for John Purser's story of one of the 6th Earl of Kellie's preoccupations, which is far too rude to repeat here. I did a quick phone interview for Early Music News today too - well, not so quick, it's difficult to shut me up once I get going. Thursday 6 March 2003 8am, Euston station, London. I haven't had time to write much here for a while, as I've been making rough edits of the Nenthorn material, and going through the tapes in preparation for next week's edit of the Delphian CD. I've had a couple of memorable encounters with theorbo players recently: Matt Wadsworth of
Ricordo dropped in on Thursday expecting to hang around for an hour or two before getting the plane to his next gig. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the airport on time (I'd never make it as a minicab driver) so instead we booked him and his travelling companion 'Theorbo Wadsworth' (aged 12) onto the next morning's flight and sat up late with a bottle of
Ardbeg laughing a lot. Marie and I had a perplexing meeting at the SAC on Monday. They're tremendously supportive of us, for which we're very grateful (and without which we probably wouldn't function at all), but their whole music funding structure is about to change and so there's going to be a bit of a hiatus while the new system settles down. This translates to us as, at the very least, a break in our funding. So we might have to shut down operations, even temporarily, until we can afford to get going again. I've just been hit with an enormous accountants' bill (the bill's enormous, not the accountant) relating obliquely to the company accounts, and I think we'll have to find ways not to spend money for a while. So this means cancelling all engagements that involve any degree of finanical risk - at least five concerts over the coming year. It's a bit depressing when we have more offers of gigs now than we've ever had. Anyway, Marie and I are going to meet again on Monday for a hard look at all the figures. Last night Triology were playing in Glasgow with the wonderful jazz guitar player Wolfgang Muthspiel. What a great group: a string trio that doesn't play any classical repertoire any more, but doesn't mess around either. And they do it full time. Makes it worth living in Vienna really. I'll leave it to you to guess which Glasgow-based writer Muthspiel has an 'unhealthy obsession' with. Their album's good too. [later, Heathrow airport] I've spent the day at Lord's cricket ground on BBC business. A chance to catch up with lots of people too, including Catherine Bott on fine form, and Philip Tagney who produces Mixing It, which is playing a track from the Prefab Sprout album this week! I haven't heard it myself yet. Unfortunately I realised just too late that my suggestion for the title of a new series on Radio 3 would also make a great name for a band, so here's hoping Radio 3 don't use it! Thursday 27 February 2003 At long last I'm taking a break from playing - in fact my performing diary is worryingly empty over the next few months, just a few gigs here and there. So for the next month or two I can largely concentrate on getting CDs edited, preparing editions, and planning ahead for next season. Marie and I met this morning and looked at our upcoming projects, all of which look like a lot of fun: two tours over the next year or so, and some very interesting possible collaborations. On Monday the fiddler Paul Anderson came down from Aberdeenshire and we played through some tunes in preparation for a concert we have in August - it's nice to be able to think ahead ... it's also great to play some of the tunes that I used to play when I was at school, old chestnuts like The Mason's Apron and Fairy Dance. This afternoon I've been clearing my desk and installing a new hard drive in my computer in preparation for all the editing that's about to take place (surface testing as I type). Not very glamorous, is it? Saturday 22 February 2003 Backstage at the Queens Hall, Edinburgh: I'm playing organ in the SCO this week for performances of Haydn's Nelson Mass with Nicholas McGegan: great fun. But it would be even more fun if I wasn't fighting off an upper respiratory infection. In the first half is Beethoven's 1st symphony (they're playing it as I write this), and in Glasgow last night, just after the last note and before the applause broke out, someone at the back of the hall shouted out 'Bravi!'. It had been a good performance right enough. But the Barony Hall is a big place and from the stage it sounded like he'd shouted 'Rubbish!' It's always a pleasure to play for Nic, as he has the uncanny knack of getting what he wants from the orchestra (and choir) without them realising he's done it. If you go out and listen from the audience it sounds wonderful, but elements of the orchestra inevitably moan that he hasn't prepared properly, or that he's being trivial, neither of which are the case. From where I'm sitting, he just wants, and expects, music-making to be an enjoyable social experience. This makes perfect sense to me, but perhaps it is deeply disturbing to elements of the orchestral mindset, that want someone to tell them what to do in a suitably stern manner. I'm carrying CDs of session takes everywhere I go, and making notes whenever I have a moment to sit down. And at home I'm trying out Cool Edit software to see if I can do some editing at home, instead of always borrowing or hiring other people's machines. I also found time this afternoon to loudly berate a complacent Mercedes driver who seemed to think it was OK to reverse across a pedestrian crossing without looking, narrowly missing my son, just so that she could get into the correct lane to turn right. Beware pedestrian road rage, we're fighting back. Come to think of it, what a wonderful pressure group could exist: pedestrians for safe driving. If every pedestrian had the legal right to inflict cosmetic damage on any vehicle that was driven without due consideration for other road users, you could have tremendous fun with nothing more than a set of keys. Fear would be struck in the hearts of complacent drivers of overpriced cars everywhere. Go on someone, do it. Monday 17 February 2003 Katherine's just sent me some of the photos she took last week - now on the gallery page ... Sunday 16 February 2003 On Friday off we all went to Kellie Castle. Most of us were travelling together and stopped off in Colinsburgh, alerted by Mhairi's unexpected cry of 'Dougie's Pie Shop!' followed by a screeching of brakes. We were just about to set off for the last couple of miles when my phone rang and it was Steve Portnoi from the BBC at the castle to say 'erm, there's no harpsichord yet'. It finally arrived 40 minutes late, so we all huddled round cups of tea and put on extra layers of clothing in preparation for a cold day's work. Yet another carefully planned schedule bit the dust. We got going eventually, for the third set of recording sessions this year for which I've been wearing a woolly hat. I'm constantly amazed and relieved that in these situations everyone grits their teeth and gets on with it rather than moaning, which is the standard orchestral practice. We were beginning to make up the delay when we all began to freeze up, so lunch was called and off we went for a memorable fish supper in Anstruther's famous fish bar. My phone rang again, and it was Roy this time to say that the electricity had gone off at the castle and they weren't expecting it to come back until six or seven in the evening. Power cuts have just followed us around this week. There's nothing you can do in these situations really apart from try to prepare for all remaining eventualities, so we finished our fish and chips and went back to the castle to rehearse in readiness for the return of some mains. It was fun to be playing Kellie's music by the light of the windows in his living room, where he must have done the same, watched by his portrait on the wall. But before we got carried away with the authenticity of it all, we figured he would have had the wherewithal to light the fire in the fireplace. The power re-appeared at about 4.30 and it was time to get back to work - a last-minute dash to get as much music down as possible, mostly in one take. Special mention in dispatches to Katy Bircher for playing the Johann Stamitz flute concerto in the freezing cold, seconds before dashing for Edinburgh Airport. You can hear the results of all of this chaos in Music Restored on Radio 3 on the 13 March. After a day like that a visit to the pub seemed essential, so we fitted in a quick pint at the harbour in Pittenweem, and introduced David to the concept of British bar snacks, before heading home to the accompaniment of Ivor Cutler's radio plays. 'Hey, you, is this your spoon?' 'I'm a bit on an ascetic myself' etc. So now, once I've tidied up, instead of being surrounded by paper, I'm surrounded by CDs to listen to. We're editing the Delphian CD in about four weeks' time, and I'll get to the duo one after that. Yesterday we joined the sunny and good-humoured Stop
the War rally in Glasgow. If you were wondering how the various
disputed numbers reported are arrived at, I can tell you, because we bumped into
my sister Meg whose job amongst other things to was count the first 10000 people
into the rally so that they could shut one of the car parks. It didn't
take long. At the time she reckoned between 110000 and 150000, the news
reports said 30000. But how anyone could guess is beyond me - the march
was still going 3 hours after the first people arrived, and people were leaving
as others came, like the morning shift giving way to the afternoon. At one point I found myself surrounded by 5 policemen, which you'd expect might be a bit worrying on a protest march, but they were all just trying to work out what to do: 'last orders we got were follow the crowd, done that.' 'Will we nip over this fence then?' Or to one older colleague: 'careful now, don't hurt yourself, you've only two days to go.' Some great banners though: a huge range of political and religious opinion and some Glasgow humour, my favourites were 'Jist gauny no' and the succinct 'Bush is a twat'. Wednesday 12 February 2003 Today we've been rehearsing again for tomorrow's recording in Kellie Castle. A slightly less blessed state of unprepared-ness prevails, but nothing worth losing hair about. The day began with me taking Paul his harmonium back, and we stood on his doorstep talking about how they came up with the string arrangement for the Blue Nile's A Walk Across the Rooftops. Yesterday turned out to be a bit of an adventure - we arrived at Crichton to find Tony Kime walking up the road, having failed to get in to the church. As it turned out, our booking, despite being made at least twice, had never made it into the diary, and although we eventually found a key to the place, not only was it not heated, but the electricity supply was actually disconnected for the day. Once I'd found this out, I trudged up the path to the church thinking 'OK, so David's come over from Canada, Alison's flown in from Lyon, Katherine's come up from London, and we don't have any way to make this record. Now what do we do?'. We thought about likely options, and eventually after a couple of abortive phone calls, Tony suggested we head over to his school (he's bought an old village school and is renovating it). We agreed to pay his builders off for the day, they cleared us a space and helped us in with the instruments, Katherine heated the soup on the calor gas stove, and by 3.30pm we were recording. Fantastic. We started playing Mackintosh tunes with a beautiful view over the fields and the sun shining on the music. We ended with a melodica overdub at 11pm working by moonlight (and the three tiny 20W halogen lamps I'd taken with me), turning on the builders' noisy but powerful heater between takes to stop us freezing up. It went well too, the spirit of adventure adding a certain something. Got home at 1.30am. So the energy level today was a bit under par (from me anyway), not helped by the Earl of Kellie insisting on writing tunes in both E and E flat major. Early start tomorrow - Kellie Castle is 90 miles away - so I'm off to bed. Had an enigmatic phone message from the Edinburgh International Festival today: 'We've had an idea, for which we need, er, you'. What can they mean ? Monday 10 February 2003 [late] I picked David G up from the airport on Saturday. For some reason, the car hire place still let us hire a van to move the harpsichord, despite the fact that when we arrived David was enthusing about the drugs he'd taken to sleep on the plane (sounded like Temazepam), and when we went back to get help locking the back door, he was wearing a pair of rabbit ears left over from my daughter's birthday party that morning (took them off just in time). So we've spent the last couple of days at Iain McGillivray's place, rehearsing all kinds of music with Katherine and Alison for tomorrow's sessions at Crichton. As it turns out, I'm not playing harpsichord much, mostly digital piano in meantone and Pythagorean tunings, melodica and harmonium. I feel a bit like a meddling amateur mucking about in amongst a bunch of professionals who actually know how to play their instruments, but I'm getting on with it anyway. Since yesterday we've moved to a state of greater (if blessedly incomplete) prepared-ness, and a much greater confidence to experiment and try things out, so this should be a nice record I think. At least I can confidently say that it won't sound like anything else. I'd try and describe some of the music but I can't get it to read coherently so I'll just go to bed and describe it afterwards. Some of today's juxtapositions include 'O lusty May' and the theme from the Waltons, Fred Frith and Debussy, and a furious Hungarian Szapora with doorbell solos. See what I mean about incoherent ? Thursday 6 February 2003 More last-minute preparation today: Marie and I met first thing this morning, mostly about the logistics of moving everyone around next week, then I trudged through what was left of the snow over to have a shot on Paul Moore and Janice Forsyth's rather wonderful harmonium, which they even agreed to lend me next week for the recordings - hooray. Bliss was truly unconfined when I walked past the local chip shop on the way home to notice that it was selling fritters. Scottish cuisine of the last 40 years is really all about finding creative ways of killing yourself: it's as well I'd just had a bracing walk. Time to actually look at the Kellie music for half an hour or so, fit in a couple of phone calls to Linn Records and David G, and then I made photocopies of all the music for next week, so that our producer/engineers will have at least some idea of what on earth we're trying to do. This snippet of conversation was reported from within yesterday's rehearsal of a very well-known British period instrument orchestra, from one of its more celebrated players (no names): 'now I remember why I don't like baroque music'. Wednesday 5 February 2003 Yesterday was my last undisturbed day at home before next week's recordings, so I tried to make the most of it. All the notation went into a folder at last, I practised some Hungarian tunes on the melodica (although it later turned out from email correspondence that I'd been learning the parts in the wrong key), negotiated a fee with the BBC for the Kellie Castle recordings, and hired an MPV to actually get most of us there. I'd managed to forget that Kellie Castle is about 90 miles away, and the latter part of the journey, across Fife, isn't exactly fast, so expecting everyone to make it by public transport was a bit presumptuous. Meanwhile, Marie was preparing sheafloads of figures for the company AGM in the evening - a successful and productive meeting, despite farewells to two board members (thanks Martin and Caroline!). Lots of good things to report, and a general sense of optimism. Yes, an arts organisation with a sense of optimism, it'll never last. A nice fax tonight from the librarian of the OAE thanking me for some Oswald I sent them the other week. Why the OAE wants to play trio sonatas by Oswald is beyond me, but hey, why not? And Kate Dunlay sent me some information about doinas, in case our set of Hungarian tunes sprouts one next week. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, neither do I ... yet. Monday 3 February 2003 At 1am last night David Greenberg and I were discussing on the phone what we could do with the Earl of Kellie's Reel (it wasn't quite so late in Halifax, NS), and in the course of the conversation he played a couple of bits to me to show me what he meant. It wasn't until some time later I broke off mid-sentence to say 'wait a minute, how did you do that just then?' I'd never heard anyone hold a phone and play the fiddle at the same time before. Yesterday was unexpectedly exhausting, not because of the heavy snow fall, but because a lot of Scotland's drivers seemed completely unaware that snow on the road should make any appreciable difference to their driving. So a succession of accidents on the Edinburgh City Bypass kept us there for a while, and the usual 90 minute journey home from the environs of Crichton took seven hours (with a stop in the middle when it all got too depressing). At one point, after a Frank Sinatra-like moment when I was concentrating so hard on the road I forgot to turn the windscreen wipers on for the blizzard (which movie is that again?), we were being followed just a bit too closely by some guy in a car going just a bit too fast. When he finally decided to overtake, we were going downhill towards a roundabout, and he completely failed to stop at it, despite the fact that his wheels weren't turning any more. 'Thanks buddy', I thought, 'if you'd done that five minutes ago, you'd have run into the back of us, and assuming we were all still alive, we'd be stranded in the middle of nowhere'. There are times when it's hard to have charitable thoughts towards some people. Monday 27 January 2003 I'm sitting in the Special Collections department of Glasgow University Library waiting for a pile of 17th and 18th century psalters to be brought out from the shelves. Special Collections used to be on the ground floor, where you would sit surrounded by wooden shelves, with the books in cages with sliding ladders, like a library from an Agatha Christie mystery. But now it's on Level 12, in a clean well-lit room with stunning views across the west end of Glasgow. OK, so today it's views of teeming rain but you get the idea. When I was working on my PhD, music was on the floor below, and on summer evenings you could sit at a desk surrounded by paper and just gaze out of the window for an hour, looking south over the rest of the city to the hills beyond. It's been a busy few days - Friday's concert was a challenge, with its complicated programme (see below). I likened one Bach fugue to cycling around on the top of a very steep hill enjoying the view, only to discover you're going downhill very fast and you don't know if you'll make the tight corner at the bottom or go head first through a hedge. Radio Music went well, with a couple of nice chance finds: I got 'Back in the USSR' at one point, and then two radios picked up a conversation about children who love taking radios to bits. After the concert, when I finally went back up to the hall to clear up, most of the audience were still there, which was very satisfying. It's nice when people want to hang around afterwards and make the experience last as long as possible. Or maybe they just wanted to get a close-up look at all the valve radios - they did look great. Thanks to Stuart Gardiner for getting them in perfect working order and electrically safe ... The British Vintage Wireless Society are here! As you can see from the quote above, on Friday this humble diary got a bit of press coverage too. Off to Crichton on Saturday, where the church and castle looked spectacular in the sunshine, for our first day of recording. Mhairi is in fantastic voice at the moment, and surrounded by players like Lucy, Sarah, Katherine and Alison, the actual music-making is just fun, it's only the preparation for these sessions that's work. But that's how it's meant to be, I'm sure. When I finally got home my son demanded a bacon sandwich, so I went down to the 24 hour 'we never close' supermarket at the bottom of our road while I still had my coat on - it was closed. Oh well, I needed some cash anyway, so I stuck my card in the machine on the wall, which promptly ate it. No food, no money, great. Was it raining? I can't remember. Things like this always happen when you're in the middle of making a record. Yesterday we recorded Jamie's songs, after he flew in from Belfast, where he and the other two 'three Scottish tenors' were doing a Burns night bash. I'd discovered last week that Pietro Urbani's tune for 'A Red Red Rose' was actually the original, predating both Burns's choice of air in the Scots Musical Museum, and the tune it's usually sung to now. A nice selling point for the record I hope - as we were going for the last take I said 'this has got to be a good one, this is the track the Americans'll play on the radio'. |
concerto caledonia
