I am so glad that we are under the same cyclone.

You came back in good time for my Geography lesson. Now lets see where Freiburg is.



That is lovely city and not too far from Trier where I went two times. In case people don't know Trier is a city where Karl Marx was born. There are a lots of Chinese people there to see the house where he was born. (I go there to see my mother).

What is interesting in Freiburg?

Oh please do, Mr S. Managing envy in a positive and constructive way is very good for the soul.

Freiburg sounds wonderful. (Manages envy constructively). Also of course the home of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra who, very kindly and way beyond the call of duty, came all the way to a concrete bunker in cold and wet London last night to play Bach for me (and others). And jolly good they were too. Lucky Freiburg to have such creatures in it.

Yes, t-p, that looks very familiar! Although the tower of the münster has scaffolding around it at the moment.

I haven't actually heard the FBO live, either in Freiburg or anywhere else, he admitted with a certain degree of embarrassment... I haven't even heard the Baden-Baden/Freiburg orchestra live either although of course I have some of their Mahlers with Gielen. Or rather Richard has my copy. Hm. Must retrieve it. There are two fine new music groups there called ensemble recherche and SurPlus. I auditioned for recherche once upon a time. SurPlus was rather important to me in moving to Germany since their oboist is also the oboist with the group I play in now - they did a concert at the place where I was in residency and I managed to persuade them to play a little Ferneyhough piece with me as soloist to round off a programme of pieces by the resident composers. The oboist asked if I was looking for a job since his other ensemble didn't have a clarinettist at the time, I gave him some CDs and der Rest ist Geschichte.

I don't think I've seen anything orchestral in my Freiburg trips unless you count playing contrabass clarinet for the theatre orchestra a couple of years back. I did see the Pellegrini Quartet at the Altes Kaufhaus once but otherwise very little concertgoing there.

Unlike Paris last week. 2e2m playing Scelsi - some lovely things especially from the singer in Khoom although the clarinettists missed some chances in Kya and Preghiera per un'ombra I thought and the audience was really not very well behaved. (It was a free concert and I think some people might have wandered in expecting something different. Good on them for giving it a go although at least one right in my sightline spent the entire first half displaying his impatience.) Also the venue was a church right in the middle of the Marais bar belt so it was rather noisy outside...

And OP de RF playing Messiaen and Mozart. Et exspecto first, perhaps not a good opener especially since the acoustic in the Salle Pleyel is a bit clinical for the piece anyway (it does need some warmth in the acoustic or all that tam-tam crassness goes for nothing). Mozart sinfonia concertante for winds which I hadn't heard for probably about 20 years but I'm afraid if I wait another 20 before I hear it again I won't be distraught - I think there's a fair body of opinion suggesting it's not by Mozart and that seems all too plausible to me. Most annoyingly of all for me, the bassoonist (who is the orchestra principal) played a German bassoon even though the radio orchestras (ONF and OPRF) are nowadays probably the most important ones sticking to the French bassoon. I was very much looking forward to hearing the basson (that won't come as a surprise to some here - it's one of my favourite sounds and I bang on about it regularly) and was a bit grumpy at the interval.

But L'Ascension (which was the entire second half) was a dream. The first movement did stretch the trumpets a bit (although they managed it better than their counterparts when I last heard it, in London); everything else was gorgeous. Second movement has those lovely twisted woodwind arabesques and the players in that orchestra are marvellous - the first flute is a certain Magali Mosnier of whom some may have heard as a soloist but unlike the first flute in a certain Berlin orchestra I could mention she doesn't stick out like the proverbial dog's, er, sore thumb. (And the bassoons were all bassons.) The third movement is that endearingly daggy dance sort of halfway between L'Apprenti sorcier and Joie du sang des étoiles and they fairly tore into it (the trumpets had well and truly recovered). But the best thing was the fourth movement, with the unison violin line accompanied by twelve soloists/apostles. Chung knows exactly how to float those harmonies and when the piece finished (it just stops, really, doesn't it? there's no cadence as such...) it hung there forever (both of Chung's hands in the upbeat position!) before anyone could breathe, let alone clap. Just as it should be.

Also did some jolly experiments with a throat mike at IRCAM a couple of days back. Some definite potential there I think.

Oh dear. This has got rather long.

What I Did On What For Want Of A Better Word I Shall Have To Call My Hols

Oliver S., grade 4 

I should have mentioned purchases I suppose.

Scores: Harawi, Czerny 5-finger exercises op. 777, Poulenc Figure humaine, Spohr songs op. 103 with clarinet, Koechlin first volume of Sheherazade songs. CDs: gosh, Spahlinger farben der frühe, some CPE Bach as recommended by Member Dish-Fragment (Bylsma, OAE/Leonhardt), Graupner (with Les Idées Heureuses), Brahms (Belceas), Elgar (Symphony no. 1 with Norrington), Janáček (Belceas again), Handel (organ concertos with Egarr), the Le Poème Harmonique disc Firenze 1616, Stravinsky (L'Histoire du Soldat with Markevitch). DVDs: Les Troyens (Gardiner), Z mrtvého domu (Boulez). And some Mahler with Kondrashin or rather Kondrachine as a present for my very dear host.

Amazing second-hand CD tip for your Paris wanderings: La Chaumière à musique, 5, rue de Vaugirard 75006. Also very close by: Gibert Joseph on the Boulevard St-Michel (the one with CDs is the one furthest south). There's more to Paris than la fnac.

18 months ago I had a guiding job for a delightful youth orchestra from Stuttgart (not Freiburg, but still Baden Wurthenburg) to take them to Oxford.  "That sweet city with its dreaming spires" I say as soon as I get on the mike.  They didn't know what spires meant.  I had to look it up in the lunch break in Blackwells.

I showed them the Sheldonian, and told them about Handel's Athalia (Miss Kirby does not sing Donizetti and Dame Joan does not sing Monteverdi, but they jointly recorded this work, I tell them) and Haydn's Oxford Symphony.  Their charming and handsome young conductor got very excited and makes a point of saying that Haydn wrote music in England for the public and not as a result of princely commission. 

Freiburg Cathedral is rather sweet.  Not up to the best English Gothic, of course, but quite nice.  Funny putting the spire (spitzturm) at the West End.  Bit provincial.

Thanks ollie, It is interesting to hear music through your ears. You can hear much more than most of us.
I am fascinated that you can hear the difference in sound between French bassoon and German bassoon. . These are French bassoons.
I love bassoon sound too. And I love clarinet sound.

Besson and buffet Crampon, not bad brass instruments either!!