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David
McGuinness's diary Saturday 24 December 2005 It must be the holidays, as I've actually had time to think about music. Yesterday afternoon I went through all the Schetky keyboard material again, weeded and timed it, and have got the solo keyboard part of the record down to a crisp 27 minutes of sterling stuff. What's more, I've scanned and printed it, and put it all together in a folder: an important psychological step on any project. I can play most of it too, apart from one page of Beethovenian wildness for which I'll need to work up some stamina. But now it really is holiday time. Blue skies (excellent cycling weather this morning), and an appointment to keep for tea at Tchai-Ovna with two McGillivrays. Thursday 22 December 2005 If you missed us on the radio last night you can listen again here for a week (click on the Radio 3 Radio Player link) - we're in A Bach Christmas 43 with Fiona Talkington, starting about 27 minutes in. Listening on the radio, the concerto was more successful than I thought after all: there's plenty of music in there, and James plays really beautifully. The 'upstaging bastard' award of 2005 goes to Alan Emslie for coming on at the end of last night's performance of Messiah and blowing everyone away with some spectacularly appropriate timpani playing in the last 14 bars of the piece - stunning. Monday 19 December 2005 I've had a sneak preview of Wednesday's Bach broadcast, which is very interesting indeed. It's always revealing to hear something from a different angle after the event. The cantata is pleasingly good, with only the last movement tending a little towards an inappropriate jolliness. There's lots going on in the sonata - my occasional bum note doesn't matter as much as I thought it would - and we make a good contrast between the astonishing busyness of the second and fourth movements, and the complete calm of the third. And you can hear Bach, which is the point of the whole exercise. The concerto is a bit of a mess though: in the first movement, James plays with the long lines that Bach wrote, while around him there's a tendency to chop everything up into little bits. I sit in the middle feeling uncomfortable and as a result not playing very much, and my attempts to bring the string playing closer to what James was doing fail miserably. Oh well. I usually sit with my back to the audience, so that I can hear what's going on from an ideal listening position, but in this concert I sat at the back of the stage so that DG and I could play the sonata with the harpsichord facing the right way (the sonata wasn't originally in the programme). As a result I wasn't as in control as I would have liked to be. So I won't do that again. Anyway, listen on Wednesday and make your own mind up ... 10pm onwards. later Sunday 18 December 2005 A wet day today, the first in ages. Not that it stopped us going out for a father-and-son cycle ride for a couple of hours this morning. Billy Connolly's theory that there is no such thing as bad weather for Scots, just the wrong clothes, has a lot to commend it. This afternoon I got to the end of my Schetky pile of photocopies, and it's been very promising. At least half of the sonatas are worth playing, and the best of the 'strathspeys made into rondos' are very good indeed. Not music of any great depth, but shameless fun. I'm sure there will be those who will complain about its sullying of our national culture, but tough - I like it and I don't care. Or rather, I do care about our national culture, but I think the question 'Is it any good?' is far more important than 'Is it acceptable politically?'. Alison is working through Schetky's cello music with a similar degree of success, and apparently there are at least 3 symphonies and 4 cello concertos in manuscript in German libraries. Hmm ... could this be the Kellie follow-up disc I wonder? Meanwhile, I'm listening to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach (I think I prefer the rougher first recording but can't find my copy - I lent it to someone years ago), after an off-the-cuff remark to a festival director the other day that a concert performance would be fantastic, if rather improbable. I might be making a brief appearance in the afternoon concert on Martyn Bennett day at the Celtic Connections festival in a few weeks, so I'm giving that some thought too. And earlier I was just becoming very irritated at the smug laziness of the first podcast by They Might Be Giants and was about to turn it off, when they completely disarmed me with a fantastic song about the human circulatory system. Returning to the question 'Is it any good?', Pierre Marcolini's Limited Edition 100% Porcelana Carré2 Chocolat is very good indeed. Friday 16 December 2005 The version of Beethoven's Sir Johnie Cope mentioned below does in fact exist. I have heard it with my own ears, and much as I would like to post it here, will offer instead to email a short mp3 proving its existence to anyone who emails in before Christmas. It's very funny. I broke my Christmas concert embargo again today, but in a nice way. At an afternoon party in Moira Porteous's house for her piano pupils, some of whom had only been playing for a few weeks, everyone brought something to play, and guest visitors from Douglas Academy music school included treble Tom Baird, who was in the excellent production of Curlew River at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer. So my contribution was to sight-read 'Walking in the Air' for him - he's singing it tomorrow night with the RSNO. Now you may think that song is a seasonal cliché, but if you see it in the context of the film, at the moment when the snowman and the boy take to the air, Howard Blake starts, not with a triumphant excited whoosh, but with a heavy low D and a foreboding minor chord. It's terrifying: gets me moist-eyed every time. But to anyone bored of the usual seasonal music, I can recommend A John Waters Christmas. Joy. Thursday 15 December 2005 A search for Future Pilot and 'Eyes of Love' at www.bleep.com will also find the track 'Changes', featuring all four of us (including DG's answering machine fiddle solo), available as a download. Usually I have an embargo on playing in Christmas concerts, after playing in a Messiah on 2 January several years ago, and wishing I'd spent the day on holiday instead (wishing so even more after the feeble cheque arrived). I'd rather have peace on earth at home, than festive choral racket. But this year I'm making an exception to play in John Butt's version of the 1742 Dublin Messiah next week. Unfortunately I lost my playing score of the piece years ago, which had all my bass figures in it (Handel followed his Italian training and didn't write many in), so I've been sitting playing through the piece to remind me how it all goes. Schetky's keyboard music will have to wait for a few more days to get my attention. As I've been typing, Maria Kalaniemi has been on Radio 4 talking about the extraneous noises available on her accordion ... Our broadcast from Perth as part of A Bach Christmas on Radio 3 is Wednesday night from 10pm. Friday 9 December 2005 A nice mention of Geminiani in the Financial Times CDs of the year today. Yesterday I was 12 floors up in Glasgow University Library looking at keyboard music (and songs) by Schetky, and by the middle of next week I should have a big pile of photocopies to keep me amused through the holidays. Among the sonatas for harpsichord and fortepiano were several 'Strathspeys made into Rondos', a nomenclature that's usually the signpost for some leaden and uninspiring pianistic variations. But some of these look like they're worth playing, and there was a helpful pencilled 'a Great Favorite' (note the spelling) above the first stave of one in particular, showing that in late 18th century Edinburgh, someone had real enthusiasm for this music. That enthusiasm has to have been inspired by something - my task in this case is to try to rediscover what. Today I was interviewed for a Radio Scotland programme about the song Leanabh an Àigh, in English Child in the Manger, the tune better known as Morning has Broken. I made a 13-voice arrangement of this for Cappella Nova in 1998 which, hearing it again, I rather like. But conversation with producer Louise Yeoman wandered off onto the subject of Scots song arrangements in general, and she tells me that there is an American recording on the Nonsuch label of Beethoven's Sir Johnnie Cope (WoO 157), in which the tenor is working from a less than clear copy, and sings throughout 'Hey Johnnie Cope, are you wanking yet?' which puts a whole new historical spin on the Battle of Prestonpans. Can anyone substantiate this? Monday 5 December 2005 I've had a day off now, so it's back to my desk and the admin resulting from Saturday. But first, some backtracking. We made it onto the stage of Perth
Concert Hall for our 12.30 concert, after the following and much more: DG
breaking lots of E strings, keyboard instruments not showing up on time, blocked
toilets in the dressing rooms, a great picnic lunch from heart buchanan on
Friday, an excellent joke-sharing session just before the concert in case DG's
string went on stage (none of the jokes were suitable for a concert hall
audience though), various snatched business meetings with Andrew Logan in church
vestries, station cafes and crowded train carriages, and the observation from
John Butt that the rising augmented 4th at the beginning of the last movement of
BWV170 is supposed to make you feel sick. Anyway, Perth concert hall is great and the staff are terrific. Having a regular gig there is going to be very good indeed. we say 'moo' on the way back to the station in Perth But my favourite bit of the whole experience was when I left the stage and listened to everyone else playing the middle section of the cantata rather beautifully. There's a lesson there: either play or organise, don't do both. I was so exhausted by the time of the concert that I was freaked out by the presence of the BBC's microphones for the first time ever: they were very close and the audience seemed quite far away. So I don't think I breathed properly until halfway through the cantata, when the end of the concert was in sight. I relaxed briefly in James's concerto, but everything else was anxiety-driven. Fortunately DG was on great form in our sonata, as all I could think about was not playing wrong notes (with the inevitable result that I started playing some). Ugh. Still, at long last I managed a quick conversation about the John Passion with a very enthusiastic Mark Padmore afterwards - he was about to sing Winterreise on the stage a couple of hours later. The other result of organising and playing simlutaneously is that I start losing things. My precious hat (from Tracy Thomson at Kabuki in New Orleans) is now missing, so I hope some kind soul in Perth picked it up from the dressing room. I lost my previous favourite hat at the end of the sessions for Colin's Kisses in 1998, and a favourite fleece went missing for a year after the sessions for The Red Red Rose in 2002 ... I don't normally lose things at all. Wednesday 30 November 2005 At long last I got to think about the music for our Bach concert this morning, rehearsing with Iestyn in the excellent surroundings of our chairman Noel's house in Edinburgh. What a relief. The parts for the cantata arrived intact and correct. But of the delivery of Spring Any Day Now CDs that was supposed to arrive from EMI in Canada today, one box mysteriously stayed at the FedEx depot, and the other consisted mostly of CDs with mangled inlay cards. It wouldn't be a normal day at the moment without something going seriously wrong. Nipped in to Avalanche Records on the way past to buy CDs - haven't done that in a record shop for a while - the Robert Wyatt 1974 concert and the new Goldie Lookin' Chain album. Wonder when I'll have time to listen. Tuesday 29 November 2005 As well as having an hour to ourselves on Radio 3 on Sunday, we got played on Radio 1 on Saturday! Rob da Banks played Future Pilot AKA's 'Changes' (which features all four of us hiding in the mix somewhere) in the company of the Clash, the Wurzels (!?), and Sigur Ros. Playing Bach in the 21st century (no. 3 in an occasional series): You might think that given Bach's place as a cornerstone of Western culture, it might be easy to obtain copies of his music in printed form to play from. Well, about two and a half months ago, I placed an order for the music we're playing this weekend. Nothing obscure: a popular concerto and a well-known cantata. By last week, after a couple of interim reminders from me, the supplier had admitted defeat with the parts for the cantata (fortunately Alison has an almost-complete set for the concerto). Another supplier expressed confidence in making good this now rather alarming deficit in the paper required for our concert, and the cantata parts finally arrived in Cambridge this afternoon - five days after they were promised, and a day too late for me to be able to send them out to players once they've made it to Glasgow. What's more, the concerto part that did arrive here today was of a different version of the piece to the one we're playing, and so it was useless. The result of all of this is lots of pointless work for me chasing suppliers, trying to set up alternative arrangements, and keeping the players informed (and whining about it here), added stress for those who would have liked to see the dots before we meet on Friday, and, crucially, less time spent thinking about and preparing the actual music. So this is the last Concerto Caledonia concert of 'classical' repertoire that I will organise. It seemed so simple from a distance ... all four of us playing within a larger group of people we know well, and only two pieces that we haven't played before (even then we've all played them with other ensembles). But the apparently simple practicalities of organising music from another culture, even one as close as Bach's, present many pitfalls which end up militating against musical thought. So from now on, I will delegate all of this elsewhere or we will not play the music. Ah. That's better. Email deluge and loads of CD orders after the Early Music Show. Sunday 27 November 2005 First things first - for the next week you can hear our appearance on today's live Early Music Show here. On Friday I took my own advice (see diary 22 June 05) and flew to London to go and hear Fred Frith playing in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. We thought it would be a good place for us to convene as a quartet, Katherine flying in from Sweden, and David from Canada (Alison getting the tube). And seeing Mr Frith play does gladden the heart, even when sharing the stage with such a dodgy outfit as Katia Lebeque's jazz/fusion combo. There was one great moment when Viktoria Mullova and the trio all just stood there staring at Fred as he made amazingly beautiful sounds - yes folks, this is what real music-making looks like.
Sunday 20 November 2005 Ugh. Got a cold. Had a useful couple of days though. On Friday a meeting, concluded with a handshake, means that we now have an agent again, and an orchestral manager/librarian for the John Passion in March. Then yesterday Margaret Preston and I spent an hour or so on stage in the empty Music Hall in Aberdeen, playing through some sonatas by General Reid to choose one for a concert in February. I've been asked to play a recital for the Reid Memorial concert at Edinburgh University, in which you have to play some Reid, so it made sense to me to bring along a flute player and play some of his music properly rather than just busking my way through one of his tunes on my own. A very particular thing happened in the concert last night: I stopped playing mid-piece (I think I've only ever done this on stage once before). Given the way a particular passage was happening around me, there was nothing I could usefully contribute to it, so I stopped and sat and listened for a while, waiting for something I could join in with. Twice in rehearsal I'd suggested how to improve it and had got temporary results, but sometimes you just have to give up. When I started playing again, it was with a greater sense of freedom, no longer shackled by the requirement to play every note. Robbins Landon once told me that he got frustrated when hearing people who play accurate continuo parts in classical symphonies, because what would have been played would be quite free, and periodically interrupted by hand-waving and conducting. The SCO is a good band to be on stage with: there's a sense of community and a desire to connect with the audience that expresses itself well. But I couldn't help noticing that everyone had their eyes glued to the page throughout the actual playing. I can play Brandenburg 4 without having to look at the score much (I know how it goes) so I could look around the band for people to play with, and in the course of three concerts I made eye contact with absolutely no-one. Not once. That's orchestras for you. There was someone sitting in the front row being very selective with her applause, arms folded resolutely at certain points. I wholeheartedly approve of this: I don't think you should have to applaud and pretend to be pleased if you don't like something. In the interval I suggested to Alexander Janiczek that we start the second half by offering her her money back: he replied that once Pinchas Zukerman actually got his wallet out on stage, and did this in a concert to someone who was distracting him. The lack of late trains out of Aberdeen means a lot of driving. My lack of attention to the notice on the parking ticket machine behind the Music Hall meant a £30 parking fine. But for the first time I gave into contemporary cultural pressure and put my iPod on shuffle to keep me entertained en route. I can't imagine any other circumstances when I'd put shuffle on, as I like to decide what I'm going to listen to, but it's an excellent way to stay awake on a long drive. Thursday 17 November 2005 Yesterday was my first chance to see inside the new Perth Concert Hall, and very cheering it was too. For a start I hadn't realised it's only an hour away on the train. It's in a great location by the river, the hall itself feels easy to play in, any blandness in the sound is lessened with an audience, and the small Norie-Miller Studio has such a high ceiling that it's tempting to put our first Bach concert in there rather than the main hall. (I'd previously thought it was called the Morphe Miller Studio after an accident with predictive text.) All this and an excellent moonlit fish supper by the river too. And I can take my bike on the train and cycle along the NCN path which passes by. Our original cellist Nicola Kingslake was at the concert, grinning near the front, so I broke my usual rule This afternoon in the Usher Hall: has Brian Schiele grown, or has his viola shrunk? Fitted in a quick meeting with Delphian Records before tonight's concert, moving forward on two CD ideas and chucking around thoughts about a very big project indeed. Being a commuter this week has meant exposure to the Metro letters page, from which I share this joke: A bloke goes into a zoo, and finds there's only one animal there, a dog. It's a shitzu. Ha ha. I left my bike in the BBC cycle shed this afternoon and picked it up again at 10.45pm to cycle the last bit of the journey home, in hard frost. It reminded me of many similar journeys when living in York 20 years ago. Tuesday 15 November 2005 I'm sitting on the Glasgow-Edinburgh train, having just finished writing in a translation of the text of BWV 170 into my score. I only studied German for two years at school so I need a crib. But it's very useful to see how Bach draws out all kinds of symbolism in the notes. It's like a religious film score. Meg Munck kindly gave me a loan of her Ahlborn B6 organ (and a shot of her and Thomas's fantastic new dismantlable chamber organ but that's another story) to try out. I was hoping that an electronic box that does passable chamber organ impersonations in different temperaments could prove useful. And it does up to a point - the sounds are really good, only let down by an unconvincing bottom two-thirds of an octave. But the unweighted keyboard is the real psychological obstacle. I'm a big advocate of digital pianos for serious musical purposes, as good ones actually feel like musical instruments to play. But an unweighted keyboard that makes an organ sound just doesn't feel right: you can't convince yourself that you're making real music rather than faking it. Nonetheless it could be a useful money-saver for use in rehearsals sometimes, for those occasions when hiring and tuning a chamber organ are out of our budget. The valiant John Butt has agreed to play it in rehearsal in a couple of weeks' time. Other organological issues: I got an email on Sunday from master flute-maker Rod Cameron at his winter residence in Mendocino, CA expressing interest in building a transposing melodica (or at least one at 415Hz). Nice. I wonder what happened to that video he once shot of the Chris Norman Ensemble rehearsing in my back garden with a rugby match going on the background ... [later, on Edinburgh-Glasgow train] I learnt a few things about Bach basslines in the course of the afternoon, and discovered that I play them much differently than I did 10 years ago. I used to say of Bill Carter's continuo playing that he didn't play continuo, he played the guitar [sorry if you're reading this, Bill, I never said this to your face], and that this was much more interesting and more risky. Rather than following a set of principles or rules, he played some real music on the instrument, that would pretty much fit with whatever else was going on. I think I've finally got to that stage now, where rather than 'playing continuo' I play the harpsichord. This is quite satisfying for me - but I wonder what it sounds like to everyone else. I've also discovered that I tend to play less when the orchestra is playing loudly, and I play more when they're quiet. But this is perhaps because I've now figured out how to play quiet music with lots of notes in it, which on the harpsichord is quite difficult. Meanwhile, my list of urgent phone calls isn't getting any shorter. [later still, back home] Monday 7 November 2005 An early morning meeting today could have some very positive outcomes in due course. On a completely unrelated task I then went to the library to look up Johann Georg Christoph Schetky in that early music explorer's bible, RISM, and found out that almost all of his major keyboard works are held in Glasgow University Library half an hour's walk away - hooray. A chance encounter on the Meadows in Edinburgh a few months ago was followed up by an email today, which might lead to a school performance of Allan Ramsay's 'The Gentle Shepherd'. Meanwhile, logistics for 3 December's Bach concert continue to be unresolved, and my to-do list grows ever longer. But ... on Saturday morning I bought an filthy old bike for twenty quid where it stood in a corner of the local church hall, and now our new bike shop is restoring it to roadworthyness. Bike dude thinks I got a bargain, even if it does need new cranks, chain, gear cable, freewheel ... I listened to the ever amusing Andy Partridge on Tom Robinson's radio show tonight. Two things struck me (apart from how naturally funny Partridge is): rock radio sounds ridiculously over-compressed when you hear it on decent equipment, and most of the music played on the show sounded like it was made 25 years ago even when it wasn't. I suppose I'm in the target age range for 6music, but do they think that people like me only want to hear music that reminds us of when we were younger? It did feel like a bit of a timewarp. I've also been in two cafes recently in different towns that played Rainbow's 'Since You Been Gone', but that's another matter. Anyway, about this time last year Tom Robinson taught me to sing 'I Fought the Law' which was tremendous fun, so I'm predisposed to like him. Interesting byways on his website too. Friday 4 November 2005 Full marks for nerve to Leon McCawley, who halfway through his lunchtime recital at the RSAMD today, stopped to ask a member of the audience in the front row to please stop snoring as it was putting him off. And then with perfect composure he sat down and carried on. Brilliant. Later today I visited a great chocolate shop, had some excellent carrot squash and ginger soup with corn bread in Ndebele, and then swam a supremely relaxed 24 lengths in the serene surroundings of Drumsheugh Baths, before settling down with a paper in the genteel and quiet lounge. Oh yes, and I think at some point I put on my tails and played the harpsichord on the stage of the Usher Hall.Thursday 3 November 2005 An entertaining day. The students at the RSAMD were very alert and intelligent for 10am: more alert than I was actually - they successfully convinced me it was Friday. Anyway, when lecturing as when playing, if you get a response from your audience, it helps a lot. A lunchtime phone conversation with the Inland Revenue charities department has netted us some money - not a king's ransom, but for two phone calls and five minutes looking up some old accounts, quite a tidy sum. And then off to the RSNO which was very entertaining indeed, but mostly for the wrong reasons. Stage space will be tight at the Usher Hall tomorrow, so after a long circumlocution the orchestra's head of planning suggested I play on an electric keyboard rather than the harpsichord. I suggested he find another keyboard player. I only play in orchestras on the condition that it's fun (it's certainly not for the money), and I'm especially not prepared to do it if it means looking like a tit on stage. It's bad enough having to dig my tails out of the cupboard and dress up like a 19th century lackey. Magically, space was found for the harpsichord. Hee hee. Wednesday 2 November 2005 There's been a sudden outbreak of activity of all kinds, and not just Halloween, Diwali and the approaching Guy Fawkes night. I'm beginning to make some headway regarding tedious admin, and tomorrow I'm lecturing at the RSAMD and playing in the RSNO. I wonder what other institutions could begin RS: could we have a Royal Scottish Chip Shop, a Royal Scottish Recycling Centre (the Prince of Wales might like that one) or a Royal Scottish Sewage Works? What determines the things that can be called Royal? You know, come to think of it, I really couldn't care less. Scotland got its National Theatre yesterday, and I remember when England's National Theatre took the 'Royal' prefix (only to dump it later), and the director Gerry Mulgrew wondered whether the next step was to get the imprimatur of the church and become the Holy Royal National Theatre. The Holy Royal & Ancient Scottish National Sewage Works Club Band has a certain ring. Kyung-Wha Chung has injured her left hand, so the recording sessions that were going to take up some of the rest of this month have now been postponed, allowing me a bit of extra time to practise and think. A chance call from a journalist friend yesterday had led to a new CD idea by teatime: there's a bit of research to be done, but already a record company is interested. Nice to have a new project on the back burner: I'll be less secretive about it once it assumes a definite shape. Sunday 30 October 2005 I've been checking the Lion CD to see if it makes sense - the real shock has been listening to it at home with a real CD player as the source rather than my iPod. Even at 320bps, it's startling how much better and more involving it sounds on proper grown-up equipment. This year is the first time I've consciously started listening to music on worse-sounding equipment for the sake of convenience - and let's face it, the iPod and its friend the iTrip are pretty convenient as gadgets go. But the shock of hearing what I've been missing all year is rather instructive. It sounds much more like music you would listen to rather than just something you'd have on in the background while you got on with your life. One track - Captain Hume's Lamentations - was obstinately refusing to sit in its place in the running order until I realised that we'd recorded it at 392Hz, a semitone lower than everything else on the record, with the intention of speeding it up later. And sped up to 415, it fits perfectly! So now that's done, it's back to the logistics of forthcoming concerts and broadcasts, booking flights, finding rehearsal venues, and lots of other things too dull to recount. We've also had emails from promoters in Germany in Austria who liked Fiddler Tam, so I wonder if a short European tour might present itself in 2007. Wednesday 26
October 2005 The picture shows my Estey folding reed organ from 1952 pressed into service as a table for a portable SADiE editing system. So now only two years in, the Lion CD is finally edited and awaits compilation and mastering. Braved torrential rain and rush hour traffic to go and hear Swåp in Stirling last night - it was worth it too. Saturday 22 October 2005 OK, I haven't written anything here for ages, but it doesn't mean that nothing's been happening. It's just been a bit dull on the whole and without obvious declarable outcomes. I've been negotiating moving concert dates, working out where we can rehearse, fixing, dealing with tax, contracts, notation and budgets: all essential to running a group, but not the kind of thing to leave you with the satisfaction of a job well done or an adrenaline high safely negotiated. All around my desk are piles of paper waiting to be dealt with. This week I will be borrowing a portable SADiE on which to finally complete the editing of the Lion CD. About time too. Unless it's sitting in the corner of my study staring at me, I suspect I'll keep finding other less creative things to do instead. I was a practising audient at couple of lunchtime concerts here in Glasgow this week: once for Barry Guy and Maya Homburger, who were great fun in a yin-and-yang kind of a way, and then for Artur Pizarro and Vita Panomariovaite - Artur greeted me with 'I haven't been in your diary for ages'. [He has now!] They were playing Mozart 4 hands repertoire, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is to watch people playing piano duets well. It also gave me a chance to suss out some music for a gig that Gary Cooper and I seem to have in summer 2007 playing fortepiano duets. When I was in London a couple of weeks ago, we nearly managed to meet to talk about it but not quite. I also picked up a bass guitar yesterday for the first time in years in an impromptu jam session at the RSAMD: 15 years ago I had a beautiful black 1979 Fender Precision with maple neck (the classic punk bass!) on which the notes, apart from tenor E flat, would sustain for ever, and I stupidly sold it to buy a dodgy Hohner fretless thing that wasn't so heavy to carry or wear. Duh. Made it to the opening of an exhibition in town today - go along and see some of Joe Davie's latest work. Even better, take a fully-loaded chequebook, Joe and Sandra now have four kids to support! Joe is of course responsible for the cover art on all our Linn CDs. On a similar note, I got an email out of the blue yesterday responding to a diary entry here from a year ago about the painting Unidentified Aircraft by Edward Baird - the painting's owner lives just up the road ... And I also got a copy today of Chris Ware's newly published compendium of the frankly astonishing Acme Novelty Library. A thing of great joy. Sunday 16 October 2005 The moon rising behind the summit of Ben Nevis, from Kilmalieu.
Tuesday 4 October 2005
The picture on the right is a rare example of harpsichord-builders' humour. When we arrived, the whiteboard in the Green Room bore the legend 'Wanda Landowska' for no apparent reason. I added 'was here', and when we returned from rehearsal the board looked like this. Yesterday I was back at St Cecilia's recording a walk around the Collection with Sara Mohr-Pietsch, to be broadcast on the Early Music Show on 27 November. It features, I'm ashamed to say, my dreadful clavichord playing, and some half-remembered Frescobaldi on a 16th century Italian virginal (I left the copy at home by mistake), but ... I got to play the re-strung Goermans/Taskin, and some Duphly on the 1769 Taskin, which still justifies its reputation as possibly the most famous harpsichord there is. It takes you into its luxurious confidence and it tells you how to play French music, and you just have to roll over and submit. I also found time for some shared enthusiasm about Denzil Wraight's Cristofori pianos with curator Darryl Martin, who many years ago was the assistant builder on my harpsichord here at home. He's going to ask Denzil what the price tag is - considerable I expect. Our Burns gig now has a definite date - January 28 - and we're very nearly sure who the guest singers will be. It's rather exciting. And today, Future Pilot AKA himself handed me two promo copies of his new single, which features us on the B-side along with Rick Webster of Unkle Bob and Karine Polwart. Alison, Katherine and I were in the studio (me on glockenspiel and melodica), and DG left his demented fiddle solo on an answering machine, which you can just hear announcing the time and date at the end of the track. The A-side 'Eyes of Love' has vocals from Stuart and Sarah of Belle & Sebastian. Still fiddling with the CD running order. © 2005 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
Saturday's rehearsal
in Walthamstow featured some unusual nose-wear from DG (pictured). And then off
to Maida Vale this morning, where what looks like a secret government bunker
houses some great big broadcasting studios, home to the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
countless Radio 1 John Peel sessions, and as the plaque above the control room
in studio 3 proclaimed, Bing Crosby's last ever session. I turned my nose
up at the big Steinway that was in the middle of the room and got my hands on a
battered old Danemann upright instead to play in the Marshall set of reels
(well, the first tune's a hornpipe). And I think I've said 'arse' on Radio 3
enough times now to have got it out of my system. Follow the link above to
listen (you've got until next Sunday). What you won't hear is the funniest
moment of the day, when Katherine did the level check on her microphone in
Swedish. 
about going anywhere near the audience in the interval (which always looks really naff) so that we could
have an all-too-short mutual enthuse about seeing one another again. There's a limit to
how much you can say in sign language from the stage.
On
Sunday night Alison and I played St Cecilia's Hall to a very appreciative and
listening audience. We did wonder afterwards if there were too many notes in the
concert though: the slow Geminiani followed by Vivaldi at the end seemed very
simple in contrast to all the complicated music that had gone before. I got to
play the newly-restrung and re-voiced Falkener 1773 harpsichord from the