A Lark Ascending

Sospiri, the tune from the 1st movement of Symph 1, the Nimrod Enigma Variation and 'Praise to the Holiest' from Gerontius would all qualify for me. Elgar could bang out a good tune.

And I suspect the same happened to many of us. In 1974/5 I was almost totally absorbed in rock and the English take on Jazz-rock. Yet I developed a thing about Ella Fitzgerald. That grew into a liking for jazz vocals - as far as I can recall there wasn't a big jazz vocal/Rat Pack revival going on at that time. I think it was a chance hearing of 'It's Only A Paper Moon'. My experience of kids at school suggests most are happy with one of the varieties of pop but can be quite open to other things in a superficial way if they bump into them via film etc. But quite a few of the older ones - mainly boys - start to fixate on older rock, probably heard via their parents or grandparents collections. Quite a few Jimi Hendrix fans out there.

Just got 300 pages in and they've just started shooting. Exemplary explanation of the tensions and misunderstandings that led up to the war. I never knew about the early claims on Cuba or the filibuster raids there and on Nicaragua (well I might have done 40 years back!).

Good lord! Feel like I was blown around Cape Horn last night. After a grim Sunday it really started to blow with relentless rain from around 9.00 PM until dawn. Currently low rain filled cloud for 300 degrees but just the glimmer of something lighter in the south. Oh, the country life.

Godawful today - low cloud and squally rain. Nice choppy ferry crossing from St Mawes to Falmouth (by chance found the bookshop/pub you mentioned, Sidewinder. Very nice - even a special table for your drinks while you browsed the books!)

The barbarians are always coming through the gates, the end is forever nigh. I'm clueless about contemporary rock/pop and have no time personally for drum machines and the like. But I'm pretty sure that in amidst the commercially driven stuff there's plenty of original and innovative music that is just way outside my fields of reference. Part of growing old gracefully is recognising that and not expecting new music to pander to your preconceptions. Start grumbling about how awful pop/rock is today and you turn into your parents/grandparents grumbling about The Rolling Stones or Dirty Boppers. As for young people turning back to...Agree with those above that its unlikely to be more than a brief flirtation. Some listeners might get drawn in to exploring more widely. Most will have a bit of fun before moving on elsewhere.

Another beautiful day today - blue skies with fluffy white clouds interrupted by a couple of short but intense showers. Perfect for a long walk round St Anthony's Head peninsula, parallel to St Mawes. Still lovely now but a very strong breeze. Could be the start of the less pleasant weather sidewinder predicted.

James M. McPherson - Battle Cry of Freedom As a kid I recall collecting a set of highly graphic bubble gum cards about the American Civil War. Along with movies of the time it etched that bit of history on my brain. I studied the historiography of the origins 40 years back and have read more general things about it but fancied something more substantial. A good read so far - nicely balanced between narrative and analysis.

Glorious day - did a nice walk from St Just to Sennan Cove. Highly recommended - unlike a lot of the Cornish coast you don't keep meeting gulleys that you have to climb down vertically only to climb 300 steps to get up the other side. Rain moved in at 5.00; just got my tent up during a bright break and now it's monsooning. I have feeling this very mixed weather is going to be with us a while.

Two days of overcast while the east of the country baked. Glorious morning today - blue skies over St Ives Bay.

He needs to drop Robert Fripp a line.

Just read about a forthcoming set of outtakes from The Waterson's 'Bright Phoebus' (Original album still OOP for legal reasons) which promises to include some of Lal Waterson's knitting patterns. That must be a first.

There's an old morris tune called Old Tom of Oxford that I meet again and again and it always has me humming along. Think the beauty there might lie in the melody line.

I know - but many other musics rely on interesting chord sequences (maybe not Cuban!). Kern's tunes are famous for their intricate chord chains - one of the reasons they are used quite a bit in jazz. Is it the melody of 'All The Things You Are' that pleases the ear or the chord sequence?

It's often worth looking for downloads specifically under the Mp3 category at Amazon - sometimes they don't show under Music or Classical.

Don't ever recall seeing that. Pub and bookshop - could be the concept that kills Costa Coffee! (Side thought - lookout for a book called 'The Levelling Sea', the story of Falmouth's heyday. Full of amazing stories - none more so than that of Joseph Emidy who began life in West Africa, was captured as a slave, found himself playing violin in the opera in Lisbon, was kidnapped by a British sea captain during the Napoleonic wars and ended up leading the Truro symphony orchestra and composing. He's buried in Falmouth. A great pre-Windrush story. http://www.emidy.com/

Even outside jazz I suspect a lot of what we think of as great melodies have their impact because of the harmonies. I've been a sucker for a good or unexpected chord change since I first started listening consciously to music (and probably before then). Example - at the end of the 1st movement of Vaughan Williams 6th Symphony this glowing, soaring melody appears that turns you to mush. Yet it's been thrown around the orchestra for the whole of the movement without anything like that effect - it's the way it's harmonised at the end that sees it suddenly emerge as a gorgeous melody.

Glad you had a good night - we heard you in the quiet bits.

http//www.supraphon.com Suspect it's available through most of the dl sources. I've mainly used Amazon and E-music.

Great night in Snoives. Much the same line-up as last year but doing the Rossini arrangements. Excellent playing from largely unknown players (at a national level at least). Again, Roz Harding stood out in the solos. Be good to hear some of Mike's more recent music recorded by this band.

Morris dancing music - it's your heritage.

The Supraphon catalogue is still there and widely available for download. The difference now is that there are many more labels at the cheaper end. In Downloadland the price differential between full price, mid and budget is much narrower than it used to be. £7.99 the norm for a full price recording - 10 years ago I was paying up to £15 with the mid price reissues coming in at the 7.99 mark.

The Lowther is a lovely record but agree about why it needs to be released again so soon when other records lie in limbo. Ronnie's 'Serious Gold', Westbrook's 'For the Record' etc.

I'd say that's been happening for a long time - if anything the classical labels are even better at marketing their back catalogues, playing up the concept of the uniqueness and distinctiveness of performers or performances of the past that any self- respecting connoisseur 'must' own. Look at all those megalopaboxes thundering out. When I first started buying classical recordings you bought older performances because they were cheaper on budget imprints of labels (though even then there was a heritage industry fetish with the past - the labels today just seem to have got better at marketing it to a much broader audience)

Thomas Penn - Winter King Focuses on the last 10 years or so of Henry VII. I've tended to neglect the Tudors, having had a focus on the Stuarts as a student and then as a teacher.