Friday 30 June 2006

on the Edinburgh-Glasgow train
An early start this morning for Katherine to drive the four of us through to St Cecilia's Hall to rehearse for our concert there on 1 September. That's right, the rehearsal is now, because on the day we can't actually get into the hall until the very last minute. And we found out the reason why. Our concert's at 6pm, and at 3pm Sonnerie are doing the Clerk cantatas with Mhairi and Lorna Anderson. Great. But it's billed by the promoter as a 'Scottish premiere'. Um, isn't this the same music that we performed at Glasgow's Mayfest in 1994, and even in St Cecilia's hall in 1998? And the music we released on CD on Hyperion? Yes, it is. So how a 'Scottish premiere'? It's a new edition, so I suppose there will be a few notes here and there that are different. That's how copyright law works, so why not concert billings? Anyway, to make the point I think we should sell our Clerk CDs to the audience as they come out. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, the rehearsal was fine: we chose a set list, I'm playing a lovely Kirckman single manual from 1769, we had a great lunch at the Spoon cafe round the corner, and I've sent everyone else off to Plaisir du Chocolat for tea before they go back to Fife for their gig tomorrow night.

But before we left I had a quick go at two of the hall's new acquisitions: a cheery-natured Italian harpsichord from 1574 that seemed to like Frescobaldi, and a beautiful-sounding single manual Ruckers that belonged to Peter Williams and suited Gibbons very well indeed.