Unusual Google Searches for Robin Hill

Robin has decided to start his Christmas shopping.
I wish him the very best of luck as he fights his way through the bear garden that any town and city will be today.
No, I really do wish him luck, as the only person he has to buy for, is me...

So, whilst he is out, I decided to make a list of 10 of the most unusual ways that people have come across this site, through google searches.
As I have written them is exactly as they appeared in the search, it amazes me that some of them found their way here!

In no particular order:

1) Mozart's dog
2) Pump it or dump it
3) Fava soup
4) Musicians have larger brains
5) Cat called Lovejoy
6) Jeckyll & Hill
7) Thatcher idiosyncrasies
8) If you can keep your head
9) Albert Einstein daydream theory of relativity
10)Home improvement blogspot

Strange but true, all these searches arrived at 'Life of a Musician' one way or another!

'Gymnopedie' by Erik Satie - Performed by Robin Hill

Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a French composer best remembered for composing deliberately modest music, however, he was a harmonic innovator, especially in his earlier pieces.
His work influenced many other composers, such as, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Cage.

Satie had a turbulent childhood, his mother died when he was young and he was sent to live with his grandmother, who, shortly after, also died.
He returned to Paris to be with his father, but his father soon remarried, the pianist and Romantic composer, Eugenie Barnetsche, whom Eric disliked.

In 1879 Satie entered the Paris Conservatoire, but he wasn't a good student. He was certainly gifted, but records report him as 'lazy' and 'often absent'. He left the conservatoire early, but did continue to study music through harmony, and then piano classes.
In 1887 Satie wrote three Sarabandes, which probably influenced the Sarabande of Debussy, 'Pour le piano', and, it was in the following year that he wrote the 'Gymnopedies'.

By the early 1890's Satie had joined the flamboyant 'Rose + Croix' artistic movement of which Satie was the official composer. It was during this time that Satie met, and became life long friends with, Debussy.
In 1895 two Gymnopedies were published, on the recommendation of Debussy, who also orchestrated a pair the following year.

Today you can hear Robin's arrangement of this calm and haunting, 'Gymnopedie No.1', which paradoxically is both simple yet highly spiritual and profound.

Robin's Return and Francis Poulenc

Robin has arrived home from Boston, in remarkably good spirits, despite the overnight flight.
He had to hang about at the airport for a while, as I was stuck in rush hour traffic, having deposited two children at school, at the earliest opportunity.
In fact we had to wait for them to unlock the door, and the lollipop man thought he was hallucinating, when he saw us arrive at 8am. (We are usually the ones running through the gates at the last minute...)

However, I eventually made it through the traffic, and whisked Robin away from the airport.
Amazingly he had his suitcase!! (Read earlier posts for the various lost luggage problems we have had.)

Once home we enjoyed the chance to sit and chat, face to face, over coffee. After catching up with nautical tales Robin asked to see the post that had arrived in his absence.
I knew that this would be the point that I lost him to the music room.
A package had arrived, in his absence, containing music.
Robin had ordered it before he went away, and, as predicted, couldn't resist going off to play through it.

The piece is 'Sarabande', by Francis Poulenc, which is dedicated to Ida Presti.
It's a short, but beautiful piece of music, that Robin played many years ago, and wanted to revisit.
It is also the only guitar piece that Poulenc wrote, composed in New York, March, 1960.

For me, well, it was just so nice to hear the guitar playing around the house again.

If You Can Keep Your Head When All Around Are...

This morning we re-discovered a fabulous piece of music.
We used to listen to this a lot but it must be some months since we heard it.
It's by Francis Poulenc, 'Salve Regina' from the opera 'Dialogues Des Carmelites'.
The version we were listening to was performed by the 'Orchestra Du Theatre National de L'Opera de Paris', and it's beautifully executed.

If you don't quite follow me here, then I suggest you go to iTunes and download a copy, or, heaven forbid, a record shop....then you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Meanwhile we are all in a strange state of euphoria here.
There is a strange yellow/orange orb in the sky that hasn't been seen since April.
Given that it's nearly August you can imagine how sun starved we are here.
So, I'm off outside, to make the most of it, as I have a feeling it will only be a fleeting glimpse of summer...