Saturday 29 August 2009

I've been transcribing bits of an 18th-century keyboard manuscript into Sibelius while listening to John Zorn and carrying on various Skype conversations, which is maybe a strange way to relax when exhausted, but I can think of worse things to be doing.

Yesterday I was in Edinburgh to go to the library, visit Ursula Leveaux and her family, and hear Kathy singing Bach cantatas with the Ricercar Consort, which was great. I'd never heard the bottom drop out of the world before at that moment in the Actus Tragicus where the soprano goes up to the D flat at 'Ja komm, herr Jesu': amazing.  And no 16' bass instrument in any of the three cantatas, didn't miss it at all.

There was just time for a bit of inevitable bumping into unexpected people in the street afterwards (the best bit about festivals), including Grant who told me that he was now going to vote for Scottish independence as a result of 1) the admirable freeing of Megrahi and 2) coming to one of our gigs. "You can't make me responsible for that!" "It's only one vote." Without the pressing requirement to be prepared for lots of different concerts, I even managed to fit in a quick couple of pints of excellent EPA in the Doric with Bill Lloyd before we got the train back to Glasgow.