Blogging is not an efficient use of my time. On second thoughts, TYPING is not an efficient use of my time. I spend far too long correcting typographical errors and not enough time expressing myself. I need a secretary.
I also need a laundry maid. Surveying this room, trying not to dwell on the large, growing heap of dirty clothes, and remembering last week's iron catastrophe, I can't help thinking that my body will be strained and my soul will go hungry for as long as this clutter remains unattended. I just can't get out of bed in the morning. It's cold, it's dark and I don't get enough sleep. I could stop going out, I suppose....
It's easy to take the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for granted. They're so good that I forget to enthuse about them as often as I should, but just once in a while they turn in a performance that blows my socks off ('Pictures At An Exhibition' a couple of years ago, Janacek's 'Sinfonietta', and so on). If the aforementioned Schubert 8, the 'Unfinished', and Tchaikovsky 4 were the bread, Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 was the very satisfying filling in a thrilling and delightful musical sandwich that I suspect had everyone in the audience skipping out of the doors of the City Halls at the end of the evening. Those who were able to stay for a while after the concert proper were treated to some of the Orchestra's principals and the young Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin's rendition of Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes. My faith in music restored, I skipped off home to watch 'Question Time' and found myself rapidly descending into the torpor I had been in prior to 7:30pm.
I'd have preferred not to get out of bed on the Friday morning, but I had to. I'd have preferred not to go out at night and, this time, I had a choice. I plucked for a recital by pianist James Willshire, the opening concert in Kilmardinny Music Circle's season. I love these little evenings, and find the tall stand with the vase of flowers placed at the side of the stage very endearing. I keep expecting Hinge and Bracket, or even Armstrong & Miller, to enter stage left and give us a song or two. Young James played a couple of things by Scarlatti followed by Schubert's Impromptus (is that the correct plural?), a number of which I had heard before. After the interval, one of the local up-and-coming musicians (who turned out to be the daughter of composer Sally Beamish) treated us to a couple of traditional tunes on the clarsach then Mr. Willshire returned to play short pieces by Scottish composers Rory Boyle and Ronald Stevenson, as well as something by Lizst, which made him (Lizst) sound melodramatic and utterly bonkers, which I suppose he was, or Ken Russell would not have made a film about him.
Saturdays aren't much better than weekdays at the moment, so it's always good to get out and do something interesting like going to the library, eating half one's body weight and seeing the annual production by the Glasgow Light Opera Company. They don't do any opera these days, light or otherwise, as there's not much demand for it, but they're starting to do a very good line in musicals. This year, it was my favourite British musical, 'Me and My Girl'. Last year, it was my favourite American one, 'Calamity Jane'. The company has come a long was since I first saw them doing the latter in 1992, helped (mostly, but sometimes hindered) by an increasing number of young people developing an interest in musicals. I came to love 'Me and My Girl' on a trip to London earlier in the same year, when I think the lead was Les Dennis. I'd rather have seen Bryan Conley, but I was too late for that. It's funny, some would say camp, and very English, and it's a refreshing change from even the best American shows, though not as slick. GLOC is an amateur company, and you have to make allowances for that in terms of the acting and singing, but the enthusiasm of the performers never fails to compensate for any faults the most cynical of critics would find with such a production.
Do three good outings compensate for the mess this place is in? At the moment, yes. Tomorrow, I may not look upon it so favourably.
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