Wednesday August 26th
Feeling tired after the exertions of last night and the weakness resulting from the stomach bug, I get up late, around 9am and take breakfast in the garden in Aigen. On such a day , the view of the nearby Gaisberg is uplifting. It's always inspiring even in torrential rain or swirling fog. Salzburg awakes all the emotions. I cycle to the local supermarket and bump into Clemens Hagen (cellist of the superlative Hagen Quartet) who is in fact a neighbour in Aigen. (As indeed are many musicians).

Friday August 21st
After the elation of the Premiere and the late night that followed I would have preferred a lazy morning, but it is not to be, for I have a long-arranged meeting with LandesHauptfrau (Mayoress of the whole Salzburg Region) Gabi Burgstaller. Gabi is a strong, feisty personality and unlike nearly all British politicians (since perhaps Chris Smith and Mark Fisher) is passionately interested in culture.

Tuesday August 18th
I wake up late , a little tired after the exertions of the last week and enjoy an hour or two reading Gabriele d'Annunzio's 'Book of the Virgins'. There is little time left for reading in this Festival summer now, so I enjoy dipping into this slim volume of four short stories.

Friday August 14th
The last rehearsal in Orchesterhaus for our Haydn programme. Joel (Prieto) , our excellent tenor soloist, is not well and says he will probably save his voice. We make a run of the whole piece and then corrections. (Not too many!) Florian Birsak (brother of our viola player Rupert) and a guest does a fine job on organ continuo.

Wednesday August 12th
A tough week starts now. For me this is the busiest time of the Festival, with a big Mozart Matinee programme and Haydn's 'Armida' to prepare and 'Theodora' still running. 10.00am -We start with our soloists and Mozarteum Orchestra rehearsing Haydn's 'Stabat Mater'. A profound, extensive piece and potentially elusive. Our soloists make up a fine quartet and they are certainly an international bunch.

Tuesday August 11th.

My 25th wedding anniversary. Tess Knighton,(author, broadcaster, sometimes journalist and lecturer at Cambridge University) and for me most importantly, my wife and mother of our beloved son Samuel, are separated by some thousand kilometers today. This being the distance between the best Music Festival in the world and our house near Granada in Andalucia. Thank you Tess for putting up with my craziness and moods this last quarter of a century. I am a lucky man.

Saturday August 8th

Early start and down to the Festival House for a musical rehearsal with piano of Haydn's 'Armida'. We first performed this production (by Christof Loy) two years ago at the 2007 Salzburg Festival and it was very successful. In large part due to an excellent cast ; Annette Dasch, Mojica Erdmann, Michael Schade, Richard Croft, Vito Priante and Bernard Richter, all of them with strong stage personalities and a good sense of classical style. We are fortunate to have them all back with us. The piece is well remembered, our extensive preparation period two years has laid deep foundations and Brenda Hurley and Bradley Moore (our music staff) and both Metropolitan Opera veterans have done good work with our cast. We even have the luxury of a harpsichord for this early rehearsal which is good for me as it gives me a work out with Haydn's extensive secco recitatives. I always prefer to play the recitatives myself whenever possible in opera. Firstly because of the greater connection it gives to the singers , and consequent control of timing, also unless there is a continuo player with whom i have worked for years it takes weeks to organise the playing style as I would like it. I also think it is very unsatisfying to direct much of the 17c Italian repertoire, Monteverdi, Cavalli, Landi, Rossi et al, if one is not a player of some sort, be it keyboard or chitarrone. These are after all essentially recitative operas and nothing makes me more angry than to see a conductor turning 'recitativi cantante' into arias in their attempt to conduct this music, which is then subsequently in a straitjacket. This results in usually unfeasibly slow tempi and in the worst cases results in heavy cuts being made to compensate for the fact that the whole piece is taking much longer than it should. Tail wagging the dog...... ! digress. In 'Armida'I I have the luxury of the Mozarteum Orchestra's principal cellist , Markus Pouget playing the recitatives with me. He is, as well as being a brilliant cellist, extremely good at this. Quick-witted, musical and purposeful. We extend the rehearsal a little and get through the piece. At lunchtime Eva-Maria Wieser (the formidable Opera Director of the Salzburg Festival) listen to a singer audition and then I have to run back to our Mozarteum Orchestra's home our wonderful 'Orchesterhaus for the first work-through of Haydn's 'Stabat Mater'. I have worked hard on the parts and I'm glad I did. The music is deep, introverted for the most part and for me reminiscent of the intensity and luminosity of the same composer's 'Seven Last Words'. It has been a long challenging week and we have Theodora tomorrow. Schloss Aigen beckons!

Wednesday August 5th (continued)
19.00 One hour before the concert and I am shown to my makeshift dressing room in the sacristy. I enjoy a privileged stroll through the St. Peter's gardens and inner cloister, a place of mesmeric beauty and tranquility not normally publicly accessible.

August 3rd
After last night's late finish I am relieved there is no morning rehearsal. I do however have a lunchtime meeting with Roland Geyer (the Intendant of Teater an der Wien) for which i am late, thanks to the torrential rain and the consequent impressive queue on Neutorstrasse leading to the Moenchsberg garage. His charm and erudition shine through in his conversation as does his balanced view of life. we discuss our future projects as well as our families and the difficulties of work/life balance. It turns out that we have both at some point taken on a 'rescue' dog and we share our satisfaction in giving an improved life to animals who previously had wretched ones. After this I rehearse the Mozarteum Orchestra in the C minor Mass. Our orchestra plays this piece every year in St.Peter's Church (it's original performance venue) in a concert promoted by the Stiftung Mozarteum within the Salzburg Festival. The choir and soloists change according to availability. The orchestra probably knows this piece as well as any orchestra on earth (as with so much of the Mozart repertoire-operatic or symphonic). The playing is refined and purposeful and our 'natural' brass instruments (especially the trombones led by the masterful Bernard Jauch) are especially impressive. These parts- so often doubling virtuosically the choir lines-as was common in the salzburg Church-music tradition- are treacherously difficult! I return home to mark some parts for later concerts.

Sunday August 2nd.

I wake up very early knowing it will be a long time before I see my bed again. Today we have the second Mozart Matinee Concert and in the evening a concertante performance of Theodora in Ingolstadt. This is a yearly event for the Salzburg Festival for the main sponsor AUDI and this year we are the final concert in their summer music Festival.