In bed by 4 AM, up at 8.30 AM for a sesh with Arktik Lake Tony an hour earlier than usual. It’s been tough finding time to sleep the last few days and even though we are now back in Porto, the pattern continues. We are in the process of preparing for the big move, Phase 3, and the getting of the collection here from England. So we have been finding shelving, painting floors, and closing our eyes and imagining how it will be. At some point in January, we will start a Phase 3 campaign and hope we can raise the funds to make this happen between support for The Archive and me working on projects. Then in the spring, we will have a big opening day with clowns, tightrope walkers, and cannons full of confetti. But back to getting up so early with little sleep, why would I do that? The answer is The Planets.
Olivia had bought tickets for an orchestra at the Coliseu for a performance of Gustav Holst’s The Planets (1918). The only problem was that it started at 11 AM. It wasn’t something to miss, so I had to have the usual Sunday morning sesh with Tony an hour earlier, so we could make it in time. It’s close to here, so leaving ten minutes to eleven had us standing outside the auditorium soon after. It’s the first time we’ve been inside the place and it was exciting knowing what we were about to hear. We walked in and there was Jorge from the record shop. He was with Ana whose son was playing in the orchestra. It was the ESMAE Conservatory Orchestra. How can they be so good? Somebody’s been practising.
There was a bit of an introduction and then a silly video with a funny synthesized voice that happened before each of the seven pieces (at this point, Pluto hadn’t been discovered).
Mars: The Bringer of War
Venus: The Bringer of Peace
Mercury: The Winged Messenger
Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity
Saturn: The Bringer of Old Age
Uranus: The Magician
Neptune: The Mystic
My dad used to play this extremely loud on Sunday mornings, he loved it, and Mars: The Bringer of War was truly amazing live. Olivia’s favourite is Jupiter – The Bringer of Jollity. Somehow all three of us were in the second row, more by chance than choice. The time of day was soon forgotten and the whole concert was mind-blowingly brilliant.
Lunch in a nearby café and then I went back to bed, getting up for Everton-Man U (0-3) and back to writing before a sesh with Rajan at 7 PM. Back on track ahead of a busy week.
Music today has been Gustav Holst (The Planets, 1918). The album cover is random, I can’t see the copy we had, but Olivia tells me I have eleven different versions in The Archive, all with their different nuances and interpretations.