Sunday 15 August 2004

home again
I'm listening to the B minor mass on the radio live from the Proms, which Katherine and Alison are both playing in. It's nicely balanced between rather satisfying and very irritating, which is as much as you can usually hope from hearing a piece you know well on the radio, conducted by someone with a personality. Alison tells me that John Eliot Gardiner heard us on the Early Music Show in March and enjoyed it. Apparently.

On Friday morning we recorded the C major Geminiani sonata, which being louder was much easier for me, even though I nearly got the sack from the third movement after my pleasant walk along Hampshire lanes to the church took longer than I'd thought, and they started without me. Oops.

Yesterday I made the pilgrimage to the Parcel Force depot (on a street in the Gorbals which isn't where it used to be, so that if you look it up on an old map you end up in completely the wrong place) and picked up yet another melodica, an Excalibur this time. Sara Greenberg suggested that as my Angel melodica has been called Eric ever since Greg bought it a name badge in an airport in Connecticut a couple of years ago, the other two should be Larry and Bruce. Larry made his brief recorded debut on the session for Chris's album in Halifax, because his upper register was a bit clearer than Eric's. Thinner and reedier at the bottom though. Bruce's strengths are yet to be determined.

Next Sunday I'm playing with Chris and Andy at the British Flute Society conference in York. We'll be in the Lyons Concert Hall, where for some years I arrived faithfully at 8am every morning to practise the organ.

And news from Delphian: the release date for The Red Red Rose is now 1 November.