It's been a bit windy here recently: this was a road sign on our street until the wind got the better of it.

I've been reading some reviews of last week's concerts (and the new CDs with the SCO) expressing some surprise at Mackerras's decision to observe Mozart's repeats, complaining that they'd heard all the music twice by the time it was done. Yup, buddy, that's what Mr Mozart wrote. And as I say to students sometimes, if you're not interested enough to hear it all over again, then it wasn't interesting enough the first time, and you should play it better - or play something else. And why observe da capo repeats in minuets? For the simple reason that a minuet is a dance, and as anyone who's played for dancing will tell you, you don't just play the tunes once. You have to go round a few times to really inhabit the tune's character, so a da capo repeat is nothing really ... 

After the death of Teo Macero last week, I listened to Miles Davis's Big Fun for the first time: the first section of Go Ahead John is truly jaw-dropping. It could have been recorded next week. Quite astonishing production skills at work. If you haven't heard it, there's an attempt to describe what happens in this article. Listen with headphones on and your brain falls off.