Thursday 20 November 2003

I was lecturing at the RSAMD this morning, teaching at Glasgow University this afternoon, and practising like crazy inbetween, in preparation for David G arriving from Canada tomorrow.

It serves me right for suggesting that we play a Geminiani chaconne in Monday night's concert.  It starts off innocently enough, only just as bizarre as you expect any Geminiani piece to be, and then two-thirds of the way through, an obbligato harpsichord part pops up, hundreds of notes appear from nowhere, and as it's by Geminiani, few of them are quite what you would expect. I realised some time ago from playing his continuo realisations that he must have had bigger hands than mine. But by the end of the afternoon it's starting to come together, and now I'm in that strange 'all fired up and nowhere to go' mood, where you've just worked your technique up into a frenzy and don't have anyone to play to (or with).