Holiday time

A few days leave from work, so all the normal routines get interrupted. I missed Concord rehearsals last night and I've been remiss in my attention to this Blog. Still, I have started writing songs again. Finding words is always a trouble, but I leafed through an old Penguin anthology of Homosexual verse (whatever that is) and found one or two poems, notably one by Adrienne Rich which comes from a collection of love poems (I must track that one down).

Once I've found a text I like the next problem is the piano; piano accompaniments never flow as freely as choral music for some reason and I am always worried about how interesting the piano part might be. Still, I am tolerably pleased with the new song and plan to do more

Whilst working in the garden yesterday it lovely to hear a programme on Radio 3 devoted to the art of Robert Russell Bennett; Bennett worked as an orchestrator on Broadway with all of the major names. He was a bit of a musical snob and had studied with Nadia Boulanger, but for a generation he effectively defined the Broadway sound.