Bachs and Syde

Miklós Spányi played the Syde harpsichord for us last evening. It was a rare privilege to hear one of the world's foremost scholars and performers of CPE Bach. That composer's works made up the first half of the programme, and his father's the second: then, to clean our palate after extracts from Johann Sebastian's densely-textured Art of Fugue and Italian Concerto, two further movements of a CPE Bach sonata were given as encores.

The harpsichord's maker, Huw Saunders was present, alongside many of those living locally who have come to look forward to Syde concerts. As well as providing top notch musicianship, Andrew and Penny also give us all such a friendly welcome, and so the audience develops as a community. Some who come I'm sure rarely get out, and particularly to hear music, but feel safe in the warm and informal surroundings of the restored 14th Century Tithe Barn, almost as if at a private performance.

Serious food

We benefitted from it being Agnes' birthday yesterday - and her wishing to celebrate elsewhere rather than by taking up the posh lunch tickets we'd bought her. Looking through the programme a while back, she had been full of enthusiasm about Morito coming to our festival: we on the other hand had never heard of Sam and Sam Clark, half of whom were there in the Spiegeltent to promote the inevitable book. Great food, and with it six delicious wines (from Laithwaites) - and also good company on our table, though from the photograph you might not gain that impression.

Before the lunch, I had been to another Times Leader Conference on stage. Much talk around the subject of poor Alan Henning - as David Aaronovitch, to applause, described him, "a modern martyr".

In the evening we drove to Tetbury for our one and only visit to this year's music festival on its final evening. It was a happy choice, as the Dunedin Consort's Bach St John Passion was one of the very best TMF concerts we have experienced - and there have been a good few over the years. A superb performance all round.

"Last minute. Come!"

This time yesterday, we were looking forward to a quiet evening at home. It seemed a busy enough week ahead, and already the effects of a month away are wearing off. But who can resist an invitation to step into the shoes of someone who can't make use of their tickets for an Angela Hewitt recital? Her programme at Chipping Campden was hardly the usual one: it contained only one major work, but when a pianist's presence and virtuosity is so unusual, this becomes an irrelevance.

Late Haydn variations were followed by a sonata by one of his greatest fans, written only a couple of years later. For Caroline, the early Beethoven was the evening's highlight: I found the performance a little clunky. It has sent me back to Schnabel, who seems better at catching the sweep and lilt of this relatively inconsequential music.

After the interval, Bach's G minor English Suite was by contrast made to sound effortless, and then came Liszt's Dante Sonata, the most dramatic of antitheses. Somehow, Angela Hewitt had energy left for a rapt account of Strauss' Morgen, in Max Reger's transcription, and to sign autographs.

We drove home the quiet way, the last of the light prevailing against some inky clouds.

Tetbury finale

I have to confess a love/hate relationship with Bach's B minor Mass. When I first heard it, more than half a century ago in York Minster, it meant nothing more than a numb bum. What was all the fuss about? I wondered. "Ankündigung des größten musikalischen Kunstwerkes aller Zeiten und Völker" - Nägeli describing it as his "Best ever" piece of music a couple of centuries ago. And again this evening, as Bach was taking 15 minutes over his first Lord have mercy!, I wondered whether I would, despite the appropriate words, possess the stamina for another two hours of this iconic piece. After all, the Mass I'm used to takes less than an hour end-to-end even with a sermon and more than a hundred communicants. Besides, what has Bach to do with prayer?

The B minor - I have heard it a lot on record over the years - gradually began to reestablish its power over me, though, as the soloists, and solo instrumentalists, came forward in the Gloria. By the interval, I was committed to sitting it through, and by the end, just sorry that Dona nobis pacem came so soon. Jonathan Cohen directed a stunning performance! His 20-strong Arcangelo choir were superb: it's invidious to single out individuals after such an event, but Tim Mead's Agnus Dei and Rachel Brown in both her flute solos were outstanding (Mead having starred also in the Sheldonian Messiah eight months ago).

And my question "What has Bach to do with prayer?" was answered in the "...et sepultus est", a moment of utter calm and devotion. One of several.

For something completely different, there were two Cheltenham events earlier in the day: dinosaurs for Ida (I enjoyed it if anything more than she did), and another Times Leader Conference. Very entertaining. Historical characters improved: "Ivan the Not So Bad, Ethelred the I won't be a Moment." "Hedgehogs: why can't they just share the hedge?" What if Nancy Dell'Olio married Lawrence Dallaglio? And apparently Ian Fleming had an affair with Nick Clegg's grandmother. "We are digressing less than we would normally," said Danny Finkelstein.

And who was saying The Times had gone triv.?

The velodrome

I'm in London for a celebration of the life of Adrian Cave. It took place this afternoon in a large lecture room, part of the recently-opened Oil Tanks at Tate Modern. One of Adrian's last projects, he helped in designing its access with elegance, much recalled as his thing at the packed meeting. Its affectionate spirit was summed up by a grandchild's quite brilliant "performance" of Albert & the lion.

The gloomy Oil Tanks themselves were showing video instalations, the magic of which continues to elude me. No doubt I suffer from late onset ADHD.

Before leaving Bankside, I sampled Tino Sehgal's Unilever Series effort in the Turbine Hall. You hardly expect to see two-dimensional framed pictures in that giant space, but this "show" is the exact reverse of what one gets in a conventional gallery. It's a Whiteread experience.

A room full of Rothkos, for example, sees people looking at the walls in silence: Sehgal has us standing or sitting in the Turbine Hall, looking at one another: "us" includes Sehgal's animators, who are liable to come up to one and engage in random conversation. Thus I had the joy of discussing sea bathing off the English coast with an attractive young lady, who broke away as suddenly as she first approached me, only to go and stand 20 yards off. I waited where I was a little longer, wondering whether I was now entitled to walk up to someone in my turn, and what I should say; but I became distracted by the realisation that the Turbine Hall floor would never quite recover from being dug up by Doris Salcedo for her 2007 Unilever show.

En route from Paddington, I paused by the Serpentine Gallery. This year's Pavilion is another sombre affair: a subterranean chamber, with stepped seating finished in dark grey cork to match large mushroom-shaped stools which comprise the only other furniture. The "space" is covered by a flat disc, its surface covered by an inch or so of water. Eleven of the columns below the disc are supposed to characterise each of the eleven previous Serpentine Pavilions, but you could have fooled me.

Avoiding buses because I feared Olympic traffic congestion, I have been riding a Boris Bike for the first time. The sponsors' name has attracted the odd graffiti artist, as can be seen from my photograph. Renting is easier than in Paris, but the biking isn't such fun, certainly when rounding Parliament Square and crossing Westminster Bridge - a bit hairy, dicing with all those buses. Even on the bike route through Hyde Park, it was tricky, being so hugely busy: in Beijing (according to our friend Edward, who came to see us the other day - he's been living there), people are moving from bikes to cars, in London it seems to be the other way about.

The Boris Bikes are low-geared, so it's warm work on a day such as today has been. I arrived at the Albert Hall from Bankside very hot and sweaty just in time for the Prom, and - standing in the packed Arena - spent most of the first half mopping my brow. It was the great B Minor Mass: the Guardian critic gets it just right - four stars. "When counter-tenor Iestyn Davies sang his solos," he writes, "his extraordinary tonal richness and imaginative phrasing combined into something truly unforgettable."

Music for cats

I spotted this front door when we were biking through Eardisley a few years ago.

We listened to the first part of last night's late evening Prom in bed; and I Listened Again (on my new Pure Evoke Flow bedside radio - a great acquisition, this) early this morning, still in bed. What magisterial solo Bach playing by Nigel Kennedy, particularly in the D Minor Partita! And he's an Aston Villa supporter. Cats apparently made up at least part of the large Albert Hall audience: Kennedy seemed to think so anyway: "It's wonderful," he said, "to see all these cats here."

A fuddy-duddy question nags me: why is my enjoyment of such sublime musicianship tainted by the artist's voice and words failing to match up to Received Classical Musician Speak? How much better, even than RCMS, to let the music speak for itself!

Funereal, not

The multi-talented Martin Clare was celebrated today in St Mary's, Fairford, a church in which he had worked in various guises, and whose roof (amongst others) he had climbed. Martin was not, however, a believer, so this beautiful pre-Reformation church was put to use (as it would have been in centuries long ago) for an essential community purpose: his friends and family packed it, for the most joyful and moving funeral I have been to for many years.

The music ranged from Bach to the Beatles, with flamenco, Anna McGarrigle and a haunting Dead Man Blues to conclude. These are only a few of the pieces that crammed a nearly two-hour service, together with six or seven tributes, Psalm 98 and Edward Lear. All the members of Martin's family contributed with an astonishing composure, which contrasted markedly with that of many in the congregation.

How little we knew of Martin in our book group! I learned that he dubbed it "the scary book group". (How salutory for us survivors to hear that!) What an example of self-effacedness he gave!