Saturday 10th November - Random Thoughts

First - the music.

Antoine Forqueray (1672-1745): "La Couperin" for viola da gamba and basso continuo 

I enjoyed this for all sorts of reasons... the sound of the music, the beautiful room, the skill of the performers, the decisive way he attacked the notes on his viola da gamba, the apparent disengagement of the theorbo player...

However, when I double checked the 'Year of Wonder', I should have been listening to this version of 'La Couperin' composed by Francois Couperin, for harpsichord;

The score looks a beast to try and play from; those funny little symbols that look like stick-back chairs, one at the beginning of the top line, and the other half-way through the lower line, are called 'C-clefs' and move the positions of all the notes away from the normal bass and treble clef locations. 

I think I prefer the first version.

Second - I survived teaching piano this morning, mainly because two pupils were away (a karate competition, or something similar). That meant I only had five pupils, and also I had two long, long breaks to catch up with paperwork and do some long, long overdue piano practice.

Third - What an amazing way to spend an afternoon when one is feeling generally grim and grotty! After watching and listening to 'La Couperin', I watched stories of dogs and horses and Korean grandmothers and Swedish farmers and highland cattle on youtube... also a young OCD couple with a cleaning compulsion tackling a mansion in North Wales which hadn't been properly cleaned by its owner - who looked like a mad cat lady, but without all the cats - where was I, hadn't been cleaned, dusted, hoovered in 29 years. Made me feel much, much happier about our own household cleaning 'routine'.

It's now evening. Only 7pm but I doubt I'll still be up much after nine, and hopefully asleep soon after. Good night all...