Then I listened to them as I pottered a way on the computer, blogging and creating a painting of Jim Park based on a second photo taken of him yesterday - you can see the results on "Mr Quartet's Artworks Site" (see links)...
After yesterday's talk re the devaluation of music, I received a coincidental e-mail from Creek-buddy Stu Cobley....
I'd mentioned to him when he visited recently, the ease with which you can buy the latest top 40 albums on one DVD in MP3 from from e-bay for around £10 including postage...
So that's what he's gone and done and he's enjoying the disc immensely...
In an msn conversation later in the day, we decided there was one aspect of the situation which the research referred to in the BBC article didn't consider...
It provides a service to music lovers like us, who like a bargain, but still appreciate good music...
For example, Stu said:-
"no way i could have afforded those albums buying them from a store being a student and it does bring music you wouldn't normally listen to, to your attention by bands you wouldn't have bought any material from. I was listening to Radio 1 this afternoon driving home from college and heard the new Madonna single which i thought was alright and now i have the album on DVD i can listen to the rest of it."
So perhaps the research is more pertinent to people who've never had the attitude towards music that people say over 30 have, e.g. teenagers?
Nowadays though, it does seem as if people are less selective about what they buy because music is just so damn cheap - which has positive and negative aspects...
Got an e-mail back from 5-a-side guru Nigel Simpson to say I'd got the date wrong for the awards night - so I had to resend the e-mails to everyone...
Then I took a hobble to the Post Box at the end of the road to mail CD orders to, hopefully, soon-to-be-happy CBQ fans...
On the net, I bought two tickets for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra tonight. Ground floor seats and no big stairs so, as long as we can park nearby I should be ok...
Then I made my first CD purchase of the year, a 1967 album by French chanteuse Francoise Hardy - who should really have been on my list the other day of people whose new albums I would buy as soon as they were released...
Webmeister Craig calls over the ether to ask if Anne and I are up for Erasure in April - The Acoustic Tour - but we decline having only seen them last year and not fancying an acoustic version much, or the idea of shelling out another £50 towards Andy Bell's shiny suits...
In the evening, after a "burns supper in a tray" from M&S - "this isn't just any Burns Supper in a tray, this is an M&S Burns Supper in a tray" as the TV ad would go - which was actually very tasty, we drove to the Queen's Hall for the concert...
The setlist was:-
Rameau : Suite from "Nais"
Haydn : Paris Symphony No 85 "La Reine"
Chevalier de Saint-Georges : Symphony Op 11 No 2 (Overture from "L'amant anonyme")
Mozart : Symphony No 31 "Paris"
Rameau is the most successful Opera Composer of all time apparently - at one time he had six operas runing simultaneously in Paris on two or three month runs. A politician who objected to his music then passed a law saying that no composer could have more than two operas staged at any one time...
The staging of Rameau's operas was so elaborate that, nowadays, they are hardly ever performed. The pieces played tonight comprised the incidental music from one opera and was very entertaining indeed...
Although Haydn's Paris symphonies bear that prefix, he never actually wrote them in Paris - he didn't have to go there because he was already so famous. He wrote six in total and was paid five times as much for each one as Mozart received for his Paris Symphony, which he did write whilst visiting the city and in such a way as to try and have the maximum appeal to Parisien audiences. It worked of course.
The St Goerges Symphony lasted just nine minutes but was a fitting inclusion in the programme. You can read more about this extraordinary character here http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/default.asp?pn=Composers&char=S&ComposerID=1843
We were sitting at the side of the Orchestra and so got the same perspective of the concert as we would have if we were sitting at the back of the second violins.
We had an excellent view of conductor Frans Bruggen who, despite looking around 200 years old, is actually only 71...
Let me tell you that, for the second half of the concert (Haydn/St Georges/Mozat) we were far too close to the French Horns for comfort!!
An enjoyable evening nonetheless and it was good to get out of the house...
When we got home Jamie had phoned offering to take me to Out of the Bedroom - I called him back causing him much embarassment as his mobile went off in the middle of a performer's particularly quiet song...apologies for that...
We ended the evening just chatting in front of the fire with Meg the Black Cat sleeping comfortably on my lap as we listened to the compilation CD I gave Anne at Xmas...
Quite a good day, all in all...
Tomorrow it's back to the infirmary for more X Rays and, hopefully, the all clear - but I'm doubtful...
Highlight of the Day : SCO at the Queen's Hall
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