As a young man...

When I was young I adored three composers: Igor Stravinsky, Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr. Aged sixteen I saw Stravinsky conduct and it was the greatest night of my life up until that moment. Perhaps this hero-worshipping aspect of my youth partly explains why when I saw this beautiful photo of Senator Obama the other day I was so moved and got tears in my eyes. I am, by the way, quite concerned about Obama’s safety, history being what it is.I attended a rehearsal of my cello piece BLUE today. I wrote it several years ago. As the title indicates, it’s got a derivation from Afro-American music. Incidentally, the most recent big work I have written (“Other Skies” for cello and piano with Rohan de Saram and Ananda Sukarlan) also has a first movement based on blues. It was whilst writing that work that I recalled that my very first composition written when I was fourteen years old (Three Miniature Pieces for Piano) uses the blues scale. So I concluded that that attraction must run really deep in me. Curious.A beautiful marmalade cat sat patiently through all this. He gave the cellist several piercing looks. Whether that had to do with the piece, or the ever present possibility of EATING, was impossible to tell. I had brought two cakes with me. Too sweet, but what the hell. Puss ate some of the cream, which he’s not usually allowed. So I hope he will remember me with fondness as:-“The one who arrived with cream cakes”.