This week has gradually become taken over with impending concerts, and the St Magnus Festival in particular, as there is quite a lot to be thought about beforehand in order to play four different programmes in four days. On Wednesday Andrew and I had a three-hour meeting to go over schedules, and make sure that the numbers all still add up; then yesterday Mark O'Keeffe came over to start looking at Janis Joplin numbers, and I sat at the piano for half a day trying to remind myself how they all go. Tonight I hope to sit down with a large pile of parts and a rubber (that's an eraser, to North American readers who may have a strange image now in their heads) to ensure that we rehearse with certain composers' work unencumbered by 21st century pencilling. It's particularly important in Bach I think, for reasons I've expressed here before ...