The organist librarian

To Riverside Winds delightful concert at St John Upper Norwood. A remarkable flute solo "The great train ride" and Rimsky-Korsakov piano and wind quintet. Served at Malta Day Mass with Cardinal Grech. It was chaotic! The French boys were back at Mass - 16 servers!! Callum Alger has started - welcome! The Prom tonight is Mozart, Strauss and Beethoven. Watched Sir Simon Rattle conducting Belshazzar's Feast, Koechlin and Varese.Played Elgar Chanson de Matin. Pomp and circumstance No. 1. We sang David Ogden Christ has no body which reminds me of Audrey Kempson whose funeral I played for. 3 in choir and Revd Sarah Goatcher gave a good sermon and had liaised with junior church as they were looking at Onesimus and modern slavery. Loved the prom BBC So with Sakari Oramo. Sibelius 5 which I love, Andriessen, Judith Weir, Night on a bare mountain. New respect for Canterbury Philharmonia tackling this work so well with many tempo changes although Sakari was faster! Have really enjo...

Galilee painting delivered to go to Bishop of Kingston's office. New watch battery (had a nice chat to the jeweller who is an organist) ears syringed, yellowfever injection at Trailfinders clinic.  Scores returned to Balham and bought ear drops. The BBC proms poetry winners were great.   An excellent Prom the St Petersburg phil with Temirkanov playing Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Stravinsky. Wednesday Sean in good humour and he enjoyed Snakes and Ladders. We had lunch there and Liz spent the day at school. The evensong at St John's to celebrate the Queen becoming the longest reigning British monarch was great with a good sermon from Colin Boswell. Stanford, Vaughan Williams, Parry and Handel. Why we had to have Ives at the end is beyond me! Wine and nibbles - Martin was there. 40 singers. 

Woke at 6 so caught up on Proms talks on Dylan Thomas, Janet Suzman on Taming of the shrew nd Ravel's home. Put up the new CD rack in the study after assembly and ordered picture frames. Used the Gerard Hulme picture frame for the bottles and it looks good. Watched the Butterworth and RVW Prom - Roderick Williams has amazing expression and diction. To vespers (3 new priests) and Mass with Fr John third Saturday in a row because he and Alexander on the only priests who can sing the Mass at the moment. He takes longer over the offertory and sermon. Amazingly we just got to the Prom in time and seats as well. BBCSO conducted by Oramo with his wife Anu Komsi hitting the very high notes in Szymanowski and Tiensuu. Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov. Parked at West Norwood becasue of the football and home at 11.15.

We had been told to be at the hall at 6 p.m. which meant we could not attend the pre-Prom talk. There were bag searches and then spent 90 minutes reading about. Judaism in my textbook. Freda and Ann chatty. Zubin Mehta celebrating his 75th year. The Webern Passacaglia with score was disrupted by a group singing Ode to Joy. The Bruch violin concerto was disrupted by people in the circle shouting who were removed by security with some difficulty. Gil Shaham played Bach encore. After the interval Albeniz Iberia could not start with more protests in the circle. Right below me an audience member went for a protester and people were shouting "Out". The order of pieces was changed so we got in a muddle having orchestral version of El Puerto and piano version for the other 2. There was even more shouting before Capriccio espagnol. We did not stay for any encores. It seems nobody was arrested! This was clearly a planned disruption and the broadcast was stopped as a result. It may hav...