Wednesday 14 April 2010

I have lots of notes to learn, or re-learn, as there are two fortepiano programmes to master in the next week and a bit, and in the second one the whole thing is written-out piano parts by Haydn and Schetky, rather than my usual diet of improvisation. Yike. I'm also preparing a load of extra Schetky material in case a recording opportunity presents itself. But the slog has meant that I've been able to reacquaint myself with Haydn's Canzonettas. The Mermaid's Song is one of my favourite songs ever, utterly charming and clever with a barely-concealed erotic undertow (meant for Haydn himself?) in the words by Anne Hunter. I had a look on Spotify and found what looked like a promising recording with Anne Sofie von Otter, and ... it was spectacularly wrong, made me feel quite queasy. I can count myself fortunate indeed that I've been able to play it with Catherine Bott (many times) and Katharine Fuge (in a week or so). 

There's been lots of media coverage of the Conservatives' pathetic attempts to persuade the general public to 'join' the government. Hmm, well I got a letter this morning from the city council here saying that they're going to implement my suggestion for where to put some double yellow line parking restrictions. My own little bit of local government, and no Tories were involved whatsoever (but a helpful LibDem was).

My good deed for the day was saving our dishwasher from landfill, finally restoring it to its full glory today after about three months waiting for someone else not to order the part, taking it to bits myself, identifying the broken bit, finding somewhere where I could order the right part, and figuring out how to put it back together.  For the want of a tiny piece of plain moulded plastic the dishwasher was nearly lost.

A sunny day - I took the second part of the afternoon off and cycled to the baths for a swim and a cold plunge, to make up for not jumping in the sea last week.