Sunday 15 December 2002

I'm in the middle of sessions with the SCO playing organ in the Mozart Requiem for Sir Charles Mackerras, who's been on very cheery form all week, eager to show us all his old facsimile of Mozart's autograph manuscript, and picking gentle fights with the producer over the talkback to induce a cosy 'us vs. them' attitude in the room. CM: "Erm, we're going to do another take of that, apparently." Member of chorus: "What was wrong with that one?" CM (with hint of irritation, but smiling): "Absolutely nothing, it was perfect".  Sir C has of course been making records for forty-odd years and he knows what he's doing.  His legendary 1959 recording of Handel's Fireworks Music with every oboe player in London on it (24 of them, recorded in the middle of the night when they were all free) has just been re-issued - I must get hold of a copy.

Greg and I were helpless with laughter as we arrived in Dundee for the sessions, as we were listening to Burt Bacharach's soundtrack to Casino Royale (another re-release) in the car - some of the most astonishingly funny playing I've heard in ages, and the sleaziest guiro ever committed to tape. Hilarious.  In the break, we had dinner with Robert McFall, who is working on an arrangement of Zappa's Echidna's Arf for Mr McFall's Chamber - the repertoires of our respective groups have some strange confluences.  I sent him the Sibelius file of our version when I got home last night. 

The logistics of moving around the country has caused us a few tuning problems, as after an overnight stay in the SCO truck, the organ gradually warms up as the day goes on, and the pitch rises steadily with the temperature.  On Wednesday I spent the dinner break tuning it back down myself with help from assorted SCO crew members.  

Calum Malcolm is one of the engineers on the session, and when we arrived he greeted me and Greg with good news about the Prefab Sprout project we were doing this time last year - a release is not too far away, with the possibility of a gig or two as well: the album is called I Trawl the Megahertz. 

Meanwhile, February is shaping up, with a  recording in Kellie Castle now very much on the cards while David Greenberg is over here finishing off our duo album, and we might try to fit in a radio appearance in January too if the dates work out.