Yesterday we got our teeth stuck into Françaix's Quintet No.1 and Barber's sublime Summer Music, both of which we got to play bits of to Tim who gave us many pearls of wisdom on balancing and ensemble. They're both technically demanding pieces but we're managing to pace ourselves throughout the day with interjections of the other pieces we've brought with us (including some Brazilian dances). Mary and Katy have decided that the pesky triplet-demi-semi-quavers (phwoar) in the last movement of the Françaix keep changing every time we come back to rehearse...perhaps we'll manage to sneak up on them and pin them down by the end of the week!
The food here is divine. It's all homemade, including a regular 4pm cake-break, and last night we had scrummy burgers and chunky chips. We keep saying to one another how grateful we are to not have to think about cooking for ourselves for once and just focus on playing!
Today we really started to break down the Finnissy, which we played to Tim later in the day, and did some really detailed work on the Barber. We had coaching with Charles, too, who offered a whole different perspective on the piece as a string player who is nonetheless very familiar with the piece and an incredible musician.
Since we travelled to Coll by car we've had the pleasure of exploring the island almost every afternoon since we've arrived. Yesterday we took stumbled across some sand dunes and played frisbee across a long sandy beach not far from the island's historic castle, although we didn't brave the sea this time. This evening we took the high road to Jonathan's confessed favourite beach on the island to watch the sun go down. A family of curious seals came quite close to us, but Henry didn't quite manage to coax them close enough to touch...
After a fierce game of Dobble and having had a healthy dose of sea air we're now off to bed.
Goodnight all,
From Cavendish Winds
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