Trinity + Brompton

The three musicians who played last night - a house concert for us lucky few who were invited - are all soloists in their own right, Matthew Trusler, Thomas Carroll and Ashley Wass. Though they came together 18 months ago, to date they are just known as the TCW Trio. At supper after the performance various more or less conventional names were tossed about as possibilities for the future: as we departed, being told we must come to their October performance at the Tetbury Music Festival, I tossed out the idea of "Three Line Whip". That would at least raise a few eyebrows.

But their music making speaks volumes by itself, in particular (last night) the performance of Tchaikovsky's great - almost symphonic - piano trio. Staggering. After which we set off for home, but only reached the end of the drive: one of the back tyres had picked up a nail. Hence the enforced - but very pleasant - stay for supper while, having given up the struggle to change wheels, we awaited the breakdown man: the wheel nuts were on too tight, he said.

Trio yesterday - Triple Crown day today, with England's emphatic victory in the rugby. And the welcome news this evening that our parish priest has bought his first bicycle - a Brompton. Can we call this a win for Cheltenham Christian Ecology Link?

Co-operation

This warm and sunny morning, Thomas and I walked up through Pittville Park to the Pump Room - once again gloriously uncluttered by marquees: his musician Godmother (Imogen Cooper) had kindly left us tickets for her recital with mezzo Christianne Stotijn.

What a lovely programme! A testing trio of Schubert songs was followed by Benjamin Britten's Winter Words. After the interval, a delicious Schubert Imo-promptu, and then two further cycles: more Britten and Mussorgsky. Finally, the bonne bouche - a song by Tchaikovsky.

I enthused about La Stotijn last time she was with us here, accompanied by Julius Drake (was it really four years ago?): my enthusiasm has increased after today's peaches and cream performance, particularly seeing and hearing the rapport she has with Imogen.

Purple patches

Even in Antarctica, I read, some are today wearing purple: it's the global day of epilepsy awareness, the brainchild (four years ago) of a young Canadian girl. Cassidy - for it was she - chose the colour purple after the international colour for epilepsy, lavender - a flower often associated with solitude, and so echoing the feelings of isolation of many epileptics.

My photograph - to complement this - was stolen during last evening's mass at St Gregory's, the first Sunday in Passiontide. The clocks went forward but the church went dark. By contrast, I had a lovely sunny walk down from home, admiring Cheltenham's profusion of magnolia trees of several varieties; and on afterwards to the Town Hall to hear (and see) the beautiful Natalie Clein playing with the Oxford Philomusica. It was her 35th birthday, and rather as - in the office - we had to buy everyone cake on our birthdays, she too gave the orchestra (and us) a present, staying on after the interval to take her place amongst the 'cellos for the performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.

CBSO at the Sheldonian

Friday's was my first visit to Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre for a symphony concert: we had heard the OAE and Andreas Scholl there some years ago, but a full orchestra playing from the romantic repertoire was something else. If truth be told, despite the well-documented brilliance of the CBSO under its young conductor Andris Nelsons, it produced rather too harsh a sound for my ears, sitting in the first tier up. Still, the chance to listen carefully to two old warhorses (Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony and Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto) in such virtuosic performances doesn't come often. In fact it was a treat.

My back has now recovered from sitting squashed for two hours on what is effectively a bench, an ordeal only partly offset by the beauty of Wren's architecture.

Highlight of the evening: the pianist was lissome Hélène Grimaud, her performance in the Brahms combining elegance with strength way beyond what her appearance gave me to expect.

"The Concert"

On its release in 2009, the New York Times hated it, as did some of our own papers; but we are still raving about last night's chaotic Cheltenham Film Society offering - a take on Russian Jewish musicians somehow getting it together to play Tchaikovsky in Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet. As a romantic tear-jerker-cum-action-packed political farce, it risked falling between every stool; but as a piece of magic-realist escapism, it was a great evening out, for this general music-lover anyway. Buena Vista Social Club on speed.

The fragrant Melanie Laurent steals the show, run close by Gheorghe Anghel of the brilliant Taraf de Haïdouks, stars of a couple of our Cheltenham festivals in past years. I felt sorry for those who left when the film started running without subtitles: they missed a treat.

Europa fits the bill

Scott Ellaway is an ambitious young man. Only 26 still, he founded Orchestra Europa all of three years ago: tonight they performed together a matchingly ambitious programme at the Cheltenham Music Festival. Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream overture; Tchaikovsky's violin concerto (Nicola Benedetti as soloist) and Schubert's Great C Major symphony. Not surprisingly, the Town Hall was packed for such popular fare. (The 6 o'clock start time was a further factor making it a gift for the corporate entertainers, who were out in force: solicitors, accountants, surveyors, headmistresses, past High Sherrifs - why, I even saw the Chief Constable there.)

What did we think of the big screens? Personally, I felt they were brilliant; but I seemed to be in a minority in our group - even though we were at the back of the hall, amongst those most likely to take advantage of them. Time will tell. Anything to distract attention from the lugubrious statues of Kings Edward VII and George V has to be an advantage in my book.

And the music? Well, the Mendelssohn was a bit heavy perhaps; and the orchestral accompaniment to the concerto soloist rather too prominent, but Benedetti gave it welly, and looks the part, if one can say such a thing these days. For me, the Schubert was the evening's highlight: OK, perhaps some of the brass might have thought they were playing Janáček rather than Schubert (especially in the 2nd movement), but I put that down to youthful enthusiasm. The tempi were on the whole just right, which is all-important in so long a work - so long indeed that we had to call on the Town Hall's first aider to revive one of our party. A dramatic end to the evening.

Old Deuteronomy

I was not particularly looking forward, yesterday, to turning out for my third concert on consecutive evenings. But it was terrific. We went to Cheltenham Town Hall to hear the Philharmonia Orchestra play three warhorses: the Meistersinger Prelude, Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto (with Boris Berezovsky) and the Pathétique. All were thrillingly performed, we thought, particularly the Tchaikovsky.

Leif Segerstam was the conductor: sitting quite far away, it seemed to us quite hard to imagine him getting through such a demanding programme, as he tottered onto the stage at the beginning, appearing to creak when rising to the podium. Ernestine Schumann-Heink was apparently of a similar build: once, at a rehearsal, she knocked over several music stands as she approached the front of he stage. "Walk sideways," urged the conductor, to which came the response: "Maestro, vith Madame Schumann-Heink der iss no sidevays."

Caroline was worried that the guard on the rostrum might be dangerously low, but Maestro Segerstam had no difficulty holding his own once installed. He even completed a stately 360 degree turn to ensure we were all enjoying ourselves as the great Allegro molto vivace approached its climax - the orchestra "still together, conductified," to use one of his own eccentric English expressions.

Sitting closer for the second half of the concert, it was clear I was wrong to think that this composer/conductor's flowing white hair and beard were evidence of great age, for his face looked remarkably young. I have now learnt that he is younger than I am; but I have yet to compose one symphony, let alone 208.