Music on my mind

Reflections on writing “Borodin in Devon”

One of my intentions in creating these Supporter Sidebars was to go behind the scenes of the writing of one of my posts.

In that spirit, here are some of my reflections on writing my recent post, Borodin in Devon.

Orchestra (1942) by Raoul Dufy. Artizon Museum, Tokyo.

The beauty of the music

It was simply lovely to have this beautiful music in my head for a while as I was writing and researching that essay. As I mentioned in one of my comments, I’d felt lucky to stumble over such a good recording that was not only beautiful but also perfectly captured the piece as it had remained in my memory for all these years. It was a treat to be taken back to the past in that way.

The need for new

Drafting the essay got me thinking about the place of music in my life. Or rather, of the discovery of new music (new for me, that is). As a teenager, it used to be mostly via BBC Radio 1, which played the latest mainstream rock and pop back in the 1960s and 1970s, where I’d hear new songs. When I went to university, I started to listen to BBC Radio 3, which focused in those days mostly on the classical repertoire (with some jazz) and which I see as having formed my main musical education.