Waters of March...

Home again and all of a sudden it's spring.

Waters of March by Antonio Carlos Jobim

A stick, a stone,
It's the end of the road,
It's the rest of a stump,
It's a little alone

It's a sliver of glass,
It is life, it's the sun,
It is night, it is death,
It's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms,
A fox in the brush,
A knot in the wood,
The song of a thrush

The wood of the wind,
A cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump,
It is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free,
It's the end of the slope,
It's a beam, it's a void,
It's a hunch, it's a hope

And the river bank talks
of the waters of March,
It's the end of the strain,
The joy in your heart...

I adore this song. See Elis Regina and Tom Jobim sing the bossa nova classic here...

Publication day!

ALICIA'S GIFT is out today! And I am sitting, unexpectedly, on a balcony in the sunshine, gazing at the Atlantic Ocean. British Airways, in its infinite wisdom, managed to change the time of our flight home yesterday without letting us know. Could be worse...

Obrigado!

I'm in Madeira, so not much proper blogging - sun, swimming pool, madeira, more madeira, fresh seafood and more madeira...mmmmmm... But many, many cheers to The Sunday Times for today's referral to this blog re Hattogate! They have an interview with William Barrington-Coupe about What Really Happened. Read it here.

If you've found this blog via that referral and want to see why, follow the Joyce Hatto label at the bottom of the post. Meanwhile regular readers can lie back and think of Canciones Argentinas, playing on the iPod by the sea.

Back sooner than I'd like to be.

Rachmaninov did have big hands

People keep writing to tell me that Rachmaninov had big hands, and this is why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKKlhYF53w

1 March

I'm fond of seasonal things, fruit, veg, flowers et al at the Right Time of Year, so trying out some seasonal colours for the blog. Blues and silvers for Jan/Feb; but now it's March and the daffodils are out.

Thanks to Stephen Pollard and Brian Micklethwait, who are both as bowled over as I am by Sokolov playing Prokofiev. Stephen reminds us that GS is playing at the Wigmore Hall on 6 June, but concert is sold out. Tickets still available for the Barbican concert next year...10 May 2008.