Classical Culture

The cost of Festival culture is such that to maximise the deficit to the bank account, I have decided to procure a day's blip from the trappings of yesterday's evening out and share them with you.

It was into the jaws of monsoon like rain that we walked through puddled pavements and roads awash like streams to join a sell out audience at the Usher Hall for a rousing concert, the highlight of which was Beethovens's magnificent Emperor Piano Concerto.

The pianist was Lars Vogt whose golden fingering defied belief and who held nothing back and was 'gieing it laldie' as we say up here, aided and abetted by a strong brass section. I do so like horns.

Vogt got wonderful acclaim and short of a standing ovation ( we are in Edinburgh after all), he did get what you might call a growling crescendo of voiced approval and many curtain calls.

Being horribly deficient in the height genes, I should not be surprised that even with the stalls on a slope and staggered rows of seats, the tallest person in the second row down should have had a head that neatly blocked my view of the pianist.
Had he had the decency to be the same size as the rest of the row's incumbents, all would have been well, and would not have needed my peering round him from time to time to marvel at Lars Vogt's flashing fingers.

A last bout of applause and then back home at a gallop through continuing torrential rain.