Thursday 1 March 2007

DG arrived yesterday, and his suitcase arrived a few hours later, and we had a preliminary scout through most of the music for Saturday's concerts. The second concert in particular is going to be one of our most difficult. The music itself requires enormous concentration, and we'll have already played a lunchtime gig earlier in the day: I might get the two-part inventions right in that one. Playing Bach's Contrapunctus 11 from the Art of Fugue when we've just played John Cage's Radio Music is going to be a big mental challenge, and there's the added pressure of being recorded for broadcast. 

But all of the second concert is music that we played with Katherine: in my score, the fugue subject in Contrapunctus 7 has the following lyric written in above it 'Katherine McGillivray plays the viola very well ... or so she says' and perhaps we were being overly optimistic when we thought that we could cope with playing 'Ich habe genug'. So some tiring but worthwhile rehearsals in prospect I think. 

later, on the train back from rehearsal at Noel's in Edinburgh

Alison tries to sleep

DG and the pills that keep him awake (allegedly)