Even after one day's rest, I find it quite hard to get into the swing of the lunchtime concert, which may be partly because Ruth and Robin do the introduction (extremely well) and I'm not buzzing with adrenalin when the time comes to play. Dickie opens the concert with two light pieces - one by Glazunov, and one Fauré - which set the tone beautifully. Then we play the Fauré Piano Quartet, introduced by Robin, who has clearly derived some benefit from his day in the cathedral, and sounds very relaxed. Sir Lennox Berkeley and his wife are at the concert, and Robin note with trepidation that they are sitting in just the worst place, acoustically - on the extreme right of the audience, where the volume of the piano is too great. Nevertheless Sir Lennox generously says afterwards that he didn't mind the over-balancing, as he liked the piano part so much. Everyone says that the acoustic was perfect, now that we have faced the piano more away from the audience. The Fauré has changed subtly since our last performance. I felt that none of us was nearly so alert as we were the other day, but I also felt a new spaciousness in the music, and felt that I had time to bring out some of the passing detail in a new way. Felix says that we all made stupid mistakes and played lots of wrong notes, but everyone who heard both performances said very positively that today's was much better, and I'm baffled by the gap between the performers' impression of how the piece is going, and the audience's response to it. Richard Ireland, who complained that all the detail was glossed over in the first performance, was much happier with today's and said that it felt really settled and grandiose where it needed to be. << less