Thursday 27 August 2009

Home again. Through the exhaustion I've lain on the sofa and watched the triumphant return of Shooting Stars, and furthered my musical education by listening to the first two Public Image Ltd albums.

Last night's show was really satisfying: a pleasing piece of programming. And it's hard to go wrong with singers of the calibre of Michael Marra and James Gilchrist on the stage. We started with Michael singing Of A' the Airts, which led into DG and me blasting our way through the Marshall-Burns set with harmonium and fortepiano. Then James came in for Urbani's Red Red Rose and the Battle of Bannockburn, we introduced Schetky's song and quartet with The Tippling Philosophers, and rounded off with Michael at the fortepiano (worth the price of admission on its own, surely) for Green Grow the Rashes. That felt like a show.

Urbani's Battle of Bannockburn engaged the audience much more than I thought it would, with a cheer for Michael's announcement of 'Total Rout of the English Army' and plenty of laughs, especially for the ludicrous Victory dance, and 'The English falling down into Halbert's Bog'. Mr Marra's rehearsal ad-libs were even funnier, including the hitherto unknown descriptive section 'Alec pulls a flick-knife' and an irresistible victory dance, leaping from side to side while flicking the V's repeatedly at the defeated enemy. In the show James somehow also managed to get laughs out of the tortuous text of The Tippling Philosophers, which is a virtuoso feat - I just about managed to keep up with him on the piano.

Speaking of which, Alison pointed out yesterday that I'm a much happier person sat behind a fortepiano than I am behind a harpsichord. If only they were easier things to look after. As Meg Munck put it yesterday, from a maintenance point of view it's an instrument that has all the disadvantages of the harpsichord and all the disadvantages of the piano. But a good one does sound wonderful. And to be able to make a big throaty roar without drowning out everyone else on the stage is good too.

Michael Amadeus Marra contemplates a new career as a historical pianist

Bill and Barnaby were on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning! Listen here at 1h42 in. The heads have their I's and O's (and the occasional II) unequally spaced which I think may have some significance too ...

later
I've just remembered the key points of two related conversations over the last few days. I was moaning to Steve Player on Saturday about the idea widely held that in Burns's time foreign musical influence was limited to the upper middle class in the cities, and that out in the country musicians stuck to their native Scottish repertoire. This assumption was casually made with no supporting evidence at the beginning of a very recently published academic book on Scottish fiddle music. 'Total bollocks' said Steve: quite apart from all the foreign dances that were taught in the country, Niel Gow even had a favourite Corelli sonata. But how did this assumption come about? Well ...

When Burns wrote his drinking song Willie Brew'd a Peck of Maut, he mentions Rob (himself), Willie and Allan, but we know that at least some of the time they were joined by one Christoff Schetky, the German cellist and composer. But (says Michael from the songwriter's perspective) it's obvious that 'Christoff' wouldn't fit the song. So this is how foreign culture gets written out of history: it doesn't fit the song! 

Today I found this artwork by Susie, on a post-it note in the kitchen.