Smelly Shoes and Redemption

Today was a bit of a triumph, a laying to rest of old ghosts. For the first time in my memory, I went for a run (3 miles, if you wish to know details), and actually enjoyed it—all of it. No doubt it helped that it was a mild spring evening, that I was running around...

Suchet, Swingouts and Semiquavers

Tuesday was a day of contrasts not as great as they initially appeared. First that evening, I went to hear David Suchet read the entire Gospel of Mark in St Paul’s Cathedral. Several things struck me. First, the way that it brought out so vividly the original...
Death and the Semitone

Death and the Semitone

‘For we shall be hereafter as though we had never been’. Cheery thoughts from Solomon, he of the Ecclesiastes quote, ‘Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!’ One could imagine that in a song-cycle with a title such as Songs of Loss and Regret, these...
Afterglow of a Instant Classic

Afterglow of a Instant Classic

‘Music, when soft voices die…vibrates in the memory’ (Percy Shelley) Two days after the recording and premiere of Jane Eyre with David Stout, Mark Milhofer, Gwion Thomas, Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra, these lines by Shelley capture my sensations,...