Recording For Teldec With Sutured Finger....

After reading, 'Painful gig story from Don Mincher', over on, 'Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog', and leaving a comment, I feel I should tell the whole story here.

Some years ago, the Hill/Wiltschinsky Guitar Duo were asked by Teldec to record two new albums, 'Les Deux Amis' and 'The Sound of Strings', with a five week break between each album.
This is, of course, an honour, from such a well respected label.
The duo obviously spent many weeks in preparation for their trip to Berlin.
One week prior to departure, Robin, who is so careful with his hands, cut the index finger of his left hand, opening a tin can.
This required a visit to the local Accident and Emergency department, where a very anxious doctor, was given the job of suturing a musician's finger....

There was no way Robin would cancel the recording.
He continued his rehearsal as well as he could, and a few days later, set off for Berlin.
The duo quickly got into the recording, and Robin was able to transcend the pain and focus on some rather demanding music. The sound engineer found the blood and sweat (but no tears) rather difficult to deal with, but he just had to focus on the mixing desk.

The music ranged from 'Suite Italiana', composed for the duo by Mario Gangi, Fernando Sor, Pierre Petit, J.S.Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Scarlatti, Rossini, Faure, Falla, Tarrega and many more, plus their own compositions.

For Robin, the main problem was barring, as the left index finger is under a lot of pressure, but he managed it.

The duo were so delighted when the last piece was finally recorded that they celebrated by walking into Berlin. They didn't appear to notice that it was a 12 mile hike, each way, until they got up next morning to discover the blisters - on their feet...

Concerto Primavera - Robin Hill

Robin has been locked away in the music room all day practicing hard on the guitar. Whilst he was doing that, I was searching through one of the many piles of paper around the house and came across this:




(You can click on the image to enlarge, but it's a bit of a fiddle I'm afraid, I will try to resolve the problem!)

It is the review for the premiere of 'Concerto Primavera', and as you can see, it went down rather well.
Since then, it has been re-written for guitar and orchestra, and is equally as exciting.
Robin worked very hard that evening, in the first half Hill/Wiltschinsky performed some of their own pieces, and then, Carulli, Sor, Mendelssohn and Petite, before Vivaldi's G Major Concerto with the orchestra.
After a well deserved interval, Robin went back on stage with Simone Rebello and the orchestra for the grand finale.
It was very exciting for me to be in the audience and hear the concerto come to life after months of composing and rehearsal, I think I know every note of 'Concerto Primavera' as well as Robin does.
Maybe I was meant to find it today, Spring, after all, has arrived.