Le musée du piano, Limoux

Limoux is a big enough place to have a sous-préfecture and three churches, one of which is now a piano museum. So it obeyed the almost invariable rule of post-concert refreshments: after la grande bouffe in a village of 300 inhabitants yesterday, today it was peanuts, crisps, and wine served in thimble-sized plastic cups. We weren't even offered any cold pizza!

Anyway, the piano museum is a nice venue to sing in (more photos). It's a huge gothic church with, as you can see, some very fine stained glass. There are about 100 pianos on display, and yet more behind the scenes in packing crates. That still leaves room at one end for seating for 150 or so (all taken for the concert), and the acoustics have been improved with wooden baffles. Result, we once again improved on past form,  and managed the best concert of the three.

Speaking of pianos, I have to put in a word for our young pianist, who has the rather grand name of Ulysse Le Beuze. When we heard we had an 18-year-old pianist with no experience of choral accompaniment, and with whom we wouldn't get to rehearse till the final weekend of rehearsal, we all had grave misgivings. Which turned out to be entirely unfounded. Ulysse is both talented and cool. He was apparently unperturbed by playing for an hour and a half three days running (plus the final 3-hour rehearsal on Thursday evening), and that included two solos, one of which was a dazzling performance of Chopin's Scherzo no. 2 which got a standing ovation every time. And which he had to immediately follow with the tiring piano accompaniment to  Brahms' tiresome Zigeunerlieder (all 11 of them).  He will go far!

It was a long day -- from there, it was off to book group over an hour's drive away to talk about William McIlvanney's Docherty. Home by 11.