"Messiah"

Ten years ago, Martin Smith celebrated his 60th birthday by conducting his beloved Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment in "Messiah" in Inigo Jones' Banqueting House, Whitehall. Last night, he did it again, this time in Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theatre, to mark his 70th birthday. And with the same tenor and bass soloists - all four in fact Cambridge alumni. (Where is the home-grown talent?!)

The banked seating last night gave the opportunity to witness the degree of close eye contact between for instance Nicholas Kraemer at the harpsichord, the first cellist and Maggie Faultless, the leader. While these performances may spoil one for "Messiah" when rendered by lesser players and singers, they certainly bring out new things. "Comfort ye...", the first words we heard, were sung by Mark Padmore with all the intensity required to remind us of Shaw saying that the text was a work of genius: "a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief". Tim Mead wrenched the heart similarly with "A man of sorrows...", and then there was the angelic Katherine Watson (only 26, and a big star looming). Gerald Finley's "The trumpet shall sound" stole the show in the London performance, and did so again last evening. In the intervening decade, he has added Hans Sachs to his repertoire: I thought I detected even a bar or two from "Die Meistersinger" in his oh-so-free final section: brilliant!

Martin looked shattered at the end: I do hope he is not already feeling any pressure to do it all over again in 2023! But where he's concerned nothing would surprise me.

"Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani"

As I said, I am just off to walk some more of the Compostela Way: this calvary stands by the Cathedral in Eauze, where we ended our pilgrimage walk in 2007.

This time a week ago, we had just returned from London where we heard the OAE St Matthew Passion in the Royal Festival Hall. A wonderful experience, musically, but the setting could have been more conducive to religious meditation, I found.

At the crucial phrase of Jesus on the cross, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani, I became distracted by the fact that the singer, the excellent Roderick Williams, pronounced the last word "Asbachthani". It so happened that I was sitting opposite his neighbour at dinner afterwards. Do you know Jesus? I was able to ask her. Yes, she replied, and proceeded to introduce me; so I enquired whether or not his pronunciation was intentional. Indeed it was, he replied: an Aramaic-speaking friend had been his guide. So, is this another Mumpsimus perhaps?

1st stop, London

As we had more than an hour in hand before our Eurostar check in, we donned our backpacks and walked round from King's Cross to the just-opened Kings Place (sic - no apostrophe!), designed by Dixon-Jones. (This is the view looking upwards from our lunch table.)

Kings Place forms the new headquarters for the Guardian and the Observer, and also of the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The basement concert hall wasn't open to view, but we saw and enjoyed the contemporary art: it's the (London) home too of Pangolin Editions as well as the Gallery providing a large exhibition space. The whole set-up looks pretty amazing to me, opening out as it does onto the canal and Battlebridge Basin.