Listening to John Martyn and Danny Thompson in the mid 1980s in Dublin - well enough said about that.

I read some of the Bartok Cambridge Companion by the Avon at the Saxon Mill this evening - esp the bits about Bluebeard's Castle. I couldnt but think of something Laurence said having seen Strindberg's Miss Julie a few weeks back - that he wants the couple to survive but in truth he can't let them.

I should add that if you get the chance to see the ROH treatment of Bluebeard and Erwartung you should take it - its cheap at the price.
Strange that it took so long for these two pieces to find each other - in the early 1960s in the USA I think. Its a heady mix of left-wing politics, bourgeois romantic pessimism and early psychoanlysis. Very ripe.

Started on Haydn Op 33 - I thought the first was the best. Haydn would sometimes, when he was bored at Esterhaza, go off and jam with the locals. There's a III7 in the exposition of the first movement where I think you can hear the effects. And of course Mr and Mrs H weren't a perfect match.

Is Bluebeard's Castle the natural successor to Cosi Fan Tutti?