I can’t go to a concert in Bath’s Assembly Rooms without imagining what it would be like to swing on one of the large chandeliers that hang in the middle of the room. How heavy would you have to be before it came down? Where are the best hand-holds?...

We have now sorted out a weekend visit for the Cathedral Chamber Choir in 2010. Over the Low Sunday weekend we will be at Sherborne Abbey. Their bell-ringers seem to move in as soon as the Abbey choir takes a break, but the Abbey is generous in the...

Between us we attended four concerts at this year’s Bath Mozartfest. There were quite a few others we might have gone to, including Mozart’s Requiem in Bath Abbey, which some people I know were singing in and which caused me to regret the demises both...

Our half-term excursion to the Netherlands didn’t include any musical performances, but I did notice one musical aspect of Dutch life; the carillon melodies played by church clocks. In town centres you never seemed to be very far from a bell-tower...

The weekend after Salisbury I was in Winchester Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors. I don’t know whether this was a deliberate choice, but several pieces we sang were used or were inspired by plainchant. These included Naylor’s Evening Canticles in...