Various CDs got distributed at Christmas time. I received a set of the Beaux Arts trio playing Beethoven’s piano trios which I’m gradually working my way through. As well as the canonical works it contains some rarities such as the arrangement for this medium of the Second Symphony. It doesn’t seem to be known whether Beethoven did this arrangement himself, though the rather uninspired piano writing suggests to me that it was someone else.
I gave the children a CD of John Rutter’s ‘Three Musical Fables’. The Reluctant Dragon, in particular, was a favourite of my younger days; by which I don’t mean when I was the age my children are now, but when I was a student. Some of us got hold of a score and used to sing along with the recording; we particularly enjoyed the banquet fugue and the triple parody at one point of Britten’s music/Auden’s poetry/Peter Pears’ singing!
My daughter also got a small battery-driven keyboard, which I have to confess was a freebie that I passed on to her. It is in various ways rather annoying; it has an option to play a pre-programmed snatch of Für Elise, though not at a pitch which could be reproduced by pressing the keys, and is not properly in tune with itself. Moreover she had better not learn pitch from it as it is about a third out. Perhaps I should replace it soon with a more accurate one.
The need to book a cathedral week in the summer of 2007 for the Cathedral Chamber Choir is looming greater. I had one Cathedral which looked likely, but communication with them seems to have run into the ground. Some months ago I tried writing to Durham, but switched to email when I printed out the letter with a new cartridge in the printer and it came out in an appropriately Palatinate shade of mauve. However, the email never produced any response. Probably time to get on to some alternatives.