They came from outer space!

So it's been a very busy week but very enjoyable.  I've tried to take it a little more easily during the weekend.  When I did the interview for the Finzi Scholarship I was delighted when one of the panel mildly reprimanded me for having constructed such a full schedule.  He (quite rightly) pointed out that packing so much in was dangerous because if one thing didn't happen then there wasn't room to "make up" but he was also quite adamant that I should ENJOY MYSELF.  Make time for actually enjoying being in Paris.  Now, this is something which I'm trying to learn!  At the moment part of the problem is that I'm really fired up about the Gallay works and learning French so I'm inclined to work and work and work...until I drop.  So I'm trying to have a more laid back weekend.


Yesterday I finished recording (very very roughly) a couple of rough versions of the Caprices.  At the moment there seems to be three variants; A. i) Caprices on their own, ii) each Caprice partnered with a Prelude or iii) some Caprices partnered with a Prelude. B. i)  All on one crook (probably Eb), ii) impose an harmonic order or iii) a mixture of crooks dependent on the character of the piece.  C. i) perform the Caprices in order of publication or ii) mess around with the order (this one is slightly dictated by the decision made for B.  The rough recordings I've made over the past couple of days cover a few of these options.  However someone just suggested another harmonic order which I'd like to try...  One way or another I've just put the six versions I currently have on my ipod and will have a bit of a listen today and try and narrow my options down.  It'd be great to start the next week with a definitive version.


So having done some good work I set out on a bit of a march.  The heavens had opened early on Saturday morning so I was glad to see the sun.  I ended up wandering down to Bastille then over to Ils Saint-Louis, home of (in my opinion) the best ice-cream in the world (specifically Caramel au Beurre Sal as made by Berthillon - sounds vile but it is heaven)...  

Berthilon itself was closed but many other places on Ils Saint-Louis sell their ice-cream so I  treated myself to one!

Walked back via the windows of Orphée a rather wonderful antique musical instrument shop run by a lovely chap called Richard Charbit.  It was also closed (probably good for my bank balance) but I might see about returning there before my stay is up.  

One of the things I've been noticing in Paris is the number of aliens in Paris.  You see them in other cities too sometimes.  By this I mean the little space invaders made out of mosaic tiles that keep popping up.  They seem to be invading!  I found a map of them but think I'll just keep my eyes open and see if I can find some more!

Visit to the Bibliothèque National de France

Excellent news!  I am now the proud holder of a readers card for the BNF!!

I was kind of dreading my first visit.  I've held readers cards for the British Library (fondly known as the BL) for years and remember some nerve wracking interviews trying to renew them.  Understandably these places try to weed out applicants who really ought not to be there.  There are so many researchers who badly need access to these resources and it makes sense that those whose needs could be equally (or better?) served elsewhere use other libraries as their first port of call.  Also, as I'm not really affiliated with any institution as a researcher I tend not to have the right bits of paper.  As with a lot of things, musicians tend to fall between the gaps - many of us are actively researching various things but we don't have an ID card with a university logo on it.  So going when you're applying for admission you always fear that they're going to turn you down for one reason or another and when you're trying to get access to maybe the sole manuscript of a piece this can be more than disappointing.

Luckily the BNF seemed to accept a mixture of me spluttering away in terrible French (though I managed it!  I MUST be getting better!), the letter from the Finzi Trust offering me the scholarship and finally my ID card from Junior Trinity.  The combination of the three seemed to do it.  However I sort of suspect that the woman interviewing me might have taken pity on me and my poor French!  I rather stupidly ended up buying a 15 day card which works out more expensive than repeatedly buying a 3 day card - I just assumed that it would be cheaper and it's strangely more expensive.  Ah well.  I've got the damn thing now so that's the main thing.  It's interesting to contrast the BNF approach which is to charge for readership (€45 euros for 15 days within a year or €8 for 3 days) to the BL which is free.  I'm a huge fan of the BL and am intrigued as to how it manages to offer all it does for free - I wonder whether this will continue in the next few years bearing in mind many of the current cuts in education and arts...  Actually ought not to say things like that out loud as it might give some people ideas.

So that was the challenge of the day.  I thought I'd leave actually visiting the reading room for another day - libraries always seem to be totally idiosyncratic and full of strange rituals which you're somehow expected to know.  I thought actually getting the card was enough stress for one day so am leaving grappling with the system for another.

I'm very much enjoying being here - though slightly alarmed that I'm quickly approaching the end of the first week!

In at the (sort of) deep end

First day at school.  As I suspected it's sort of awkward joining at this point in the course.  Technically the courses here work on a monthly basis with everyone signing up at the beginning of the month.  Because I'm not a total beginner (though not far off) they were happy for me to join in the fourth week but as I feared it means I've joined the fourth week of the beginners.  It's not too bad because I'm not starting from scratch though having never had formal French lessons there are gaps in my knowledge and in my confidence as well.   The others have had three rather hard core weeks so I feel a little daunted!  On the plus side it gives me a week to hopefully get enough under my belt so I don't then have to start at the beginning come next month.  On the plus side the school seems very very good and I'm very impressed with the teacher.  There's only 8 of us in the class and it seems to be a good mixture of speaking, writing, grammar and listening which I'm glad of.  I was speaking to a colleague who had gone to another language school in Paris and I was a little surprised when she said it was really only conversation.  Though that's probably one thing you can't do on your own I feel as if I do need to have all the other building blocks going on to get somewhere with this!

Having had a fair workout at the school I came home to get cracking with the Gallay.  Didn't quite get as much practice done as I had scheduled - partially due to having not played this instrument for a few weeks and needing to get a different sort of stamina going again - but wasn't far off.  This week is mainly about getting the Caprices going again having had a break from them for a couple of months.  But I'm also trying to formulate different approaches to them, thinking about whether to play them in the order in which they were published, what crooks to use etc etc.  One thing I played with today was pairing them up with some of Gallay's Unmeasured Preludes.  Here I'm working on the premise that "preluding" was one of the many skills wind players were expected to have.  Dauprat is rather snide about it (annoyingly I don't have the quote to hand... the tome is back in London...) saying something along the lines of some players ruining performances by endless and needless preluding.  I'm quite a fan of the Gallay Préludes non mesurés  (Op. 27) and I'm wondering whether pairing a prelude with each Caprice might work....

Once it had all got too much I strolled down to the Buttes-Chaumont which is not so far away from where I'm staying.  Hopefully I'll get more opportunities to explore this park.  A friend of mine described it as more of an "English" than a "French" type of park and justified his view by saying the the Tuileries is all manicured and lolly-pop bay trees whilst the Buttes-Chaumont is more wild and romantic.  One thing I've always loved about London and missed in most other big cities is the big green royal parks where you can escape city living so it's very nice to discover the Buttes-Chaumont.

Ce commence!

So, finally, I'm here!  Well to be totally honest I arrived in Paris yesterday for the final concert in the JEG/ORR Brahms & Schumann tour.  We had quite a tricky journey (early start, delayed flight and then one of the violinists fainted on the plane - luckily we had just landed, but there's been a great deal of illness on this tour and this poor girl had picked up an ear infection) but eventually got to Paris.  I'm quite sad to see the back of this tour.  Funnily enough at the beginning of the tour I felt quite differently but with each concert I felt more confident with both the music and the instrument I was using.

This morning my dear friend and colleague Jorge Renteria helped me move from the hotel ORR were staying in to my new place.  This was especially kind of him as had 3 horns, laptop and big suitcase!  I'm renting a wonderful place off two colleagues who are away at the moment and I've really landed on my feet - it's the most incredible place.  It's in Belleville (near Jourdain) which looks to be a great district.  The house itself is incredibly light and spacious (with a soundproofed room for practice) and there are so many interesting books and CDs on the shelves which I think will be quite inspiring.

On arriving a neighbour pointed me in the direction of what looks like a weekly market where I stocked up on groceries.  Good practice of my basic French!  I also took a bit of a walk to work out where the French language school is so that I can find it tomorrow.  Quite nervous about going back to school!

Thomas Zehetmair and Paganini

Getting closer and closer to the "official" beginning of the Gallay Project.  I'm just coming towards the end of a tour with Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and John Eliot Gardiner in which we're performing Schumann Manfred Overture, Brahms Double Concerto and Schumann 3rd Symphony (Rhenish).  Quite a lot of notes for the horn section and it's been quite exhausting but a lot of fun.

The Brahms concerto was quite unknown to me prior to this project and it's been an utter revelation.  An amazing piece and fantastic soloists - Thomas Zehetmair on violin and Christian Poltera on cello.  I was rather slow in realising that Thomas Zehetmair is the same Thomas Zehetmair renowned for performing the Paganini Caprices in their entirety (duh!).  He very kindly let me pick his brains the other day and it was extremely interesting to hear his views on the Paganini works.  I have his amazing EMC recording which I love.  I was really struck by something Zehetmair wrote in the liner notes; "there's no getting away from it, in Paganini's music there has to be something of the circus ring.  The Caprices are absolutely wonderful improvisations; they all very much have a character of their own.  But they don't hit the mark unless there's also that hint of the circus".

Very spoilt

Some incredibly exciting news!  I've just been lent the most perfect instrument for the recording.  My plea to the Cité du Musique Paris hasn't gone entirely unheard.  It sounds like I might be able to "view" the Gallay instrument (and, fingers crossed, maybe even play it) but, unsurprisingly, borrowing it for the recording doesn't seem possible.

However another (for the time being nameless) institution has come to the rescue and have lent me a fabulous Raoux cor solo from roughly the same date.  I had a bit of a play on it a couple of days - reluctantly kept it short because preparing for the Gardiner/ORR Schumann/Brahms tour that starts tomorrow is really my priority.  I'm amazed at how different it feels and sounds to the Raoux orchestral instrument I own.  For a moment (logistics, as so often, rearing their ugly head) I considered the possibility of playing the cor solo for the Brahms part of the ORR programme.  I had been planning on using another instrument with a beautiful, velvety sound and momentarily thought (authenticity aside for one moment) that it'd make things simpler if I used the cor solo instead.  Especially as I only need E and D crooks for this particular work - cor solo crooks.  However almost instantly on playing the instrument it was obvious that the light, flexible timbre of the instrument wouldn't really be appropriate for Brahms.  Ah well more things to carry (or correctly more reasons to be extremely grateful for the wonderful roadie we have with ORR - keeping us and our osteopaths more happy!).

More on the new cor solo to follow!