Between now and August

Obviously there will not be all that much festival related stuff to cover in the coming months (though we may well post our thoughts about the programme). So what, if anything, is going to appear here between now and then?



Festivals Past

In both 2005 and 2006, I recorded my thoughts over at the Naim Forum. Over the coming weeks I'll be republishing those posts here. So you can look forward to last year's Beethoven and Bruckner symphony cycles, Mahler 3 from Runnicles, The Death of Klinghoffer and much more.



Runnicles' Discography

Despite having been a fan of Donald Runnicles for some time, I only actually got round to buying a CD of his last summer: his disc of Beethoven's 9th symphony with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And quite something it is too. It prompted me to visit his official discography which got me thinking. Many of the artists I admire, for example Charles Mackerras, have such vast discographies that it is difficult to acquire them in full, and reviewing them would be a vast labour. Indeed, in the case of Mackerras it is further complicated as there are a number of discs which are no longer available. But Runnicles' discography is of a manageable size, so I resolved to first pick up and then review it all. Originally I conceived this as a series of posts over at the Naim Forum, but with the advent of this blog, they will appear here first.


Other interests

In my first post, I mentioned that this site would cover more than simply the EIF or Runnicles. The third link on our list will take you to Venue 40. During the Fringe (a competing festival which overlaps with the first two weeks of the EIF), the Edinburgh Quaker Meeting House becomes a venue. We install raked seating for around 60 people and run a full theatre programme of 5 shows. This in addition to a vegetarian cafe during the daytime. The whole thing is staffed on a volunteer basis (of which I am one) with the profits going to charity. So we'll be plugging that here too, and probably reviewing the shows we go to there. During August the Venue 40 site will have more comprehensive reviews. Please note, if you go there now you'll only see the 2006 programme, 2007 is not yet finalised but we'll post here when it is.

On the left you'll also find links to the various music (or music related forums) where I post. The Naim Audio Forum is run by hi-fi maker Naim and while its music room covers all genres, there is a dedicated and at times very knowledgeable group of classical contributers: take, for example, this round-up of recordings of the Emperor concerto. Of course it's primarily intended for those who own Naim kit, but there are people there who don't, and the music room can always benefit from new members. There are also links to the BBC Radio 3 message boards, though in recent weeks they have been severely curtailed, with discussion on all bar a few programmes banned, and the offshoot prompted by this decision: R3OK. Lastly there is the forum at Pink Fish Media, another hi-fi forum first and foremost, but anyone with classical interests would be more than welcome to the music room there.