Summer marches in

We went to an amazing performance of Mahler's 3rd Symphony at the Barbican last night - Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus - a huge symphony in every respect - nearly 2 hours long and with hundreds of people on stage, making occasionally deafening noises!  MTT is a brilliant conductor and so popular with the audience.

He was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer about 3 years ago, and is a shadow of the man I remember.  He was helped onto the stage and was "looked after" by the front row and the soloist.  His conducting was less vigorous than before but he still had total control over the performance and its heart-rending emotion.  Needless to say, no-one was sitting at the end and there was barely a dry eye.  People are usually given weeks or maybe months to live with that diagnosis, it is a miracle he is still here and wanting to make sublime music.

The first movement was described by Mahler as "Summer marches in", and it marched into my garden today.  We got all the pots out of the greenhouse and started to plant up the geraniums and fuchsias.  I even harvested some herbs to dry on the table in the sunshine.