My pore brane is frazzled. I spent a couple of hours at our Mus Dir Colin's house, firstly running through the Tchiakovsky I'm singing. I find it rhythmically challenging and it will take a fair bit of work before I'm happy with it. Then we played through the first movement of Beethoven's first concerto, with Colin playing the orchestral reduction on his Clavinova, and me playing the piano solo on his 1923 Steinway grand. We went through the Beethoven twice, then the Tchaikovsky again. I have the kind of mental exhaustion I used to get after a 5-hour chess game.
Colin's small music room also had crammed in it a huge 3-manual electronic organ. Apparently this was bought, or hired, as a stop-gap by Brentford cathedral (I thought he said Brentford, but does that have a cathedral? Maybe I misheard and he said Brentwood - which most certainly does) when their real organ was having a major overhaul. After Colin had started negotiations to purchase it at half its usual price, he found that an old pal had connections with the company, and he got an even bigger discount. It had to be taken apart before it would fit into his house.
Colin is light years ahead of me as a musician. I gave a reasonably good account of myself playing the Beethoven, but it needs a lot more practice. I'm flattered that he has the patience to put up with my blundering, but then I suppose it must be quite hard to find people of his own standard to play with. Since his entire life seems to be dedicated to making music, he is almost always dealing with lesser mortals. He has great patience.
