Back in England, at last. And the sun is shining and it's around 25 degrees! Desperate for cheese and fish after my American trip; but Quayles had no camembert, and neither Morrisons nor Sainsburys could come up with plaice, squid or mussels. Gastronomic gloom.

However, I greatly enjoyed a CD I plucked serendipitously from my shelves: Irina Muresanu playing the violin & piano sonatas of Guillaume Lekeu and of Albéric Magnard. 70 minutes and 28 seconds of gentle, fin de siècle music, and well played.

Listening to my latest Music & Arts acquisition (Furtwängler in Lucerne in 1947 and 1953) it was brought home to me just what a difference a major conductor can make in concertos. The first Beethoven piano concerto (Adrian Aeschbacher) and the Brahms double concerto (Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Enrico Mainardi) come over much stronger with a firm conductor at the helm. A pity the Brahms double suffers from inferior recording, since it's a very fine performance indeed.