Dance events at The Festival Theatre are usually well attended so the management must have been disappointed at the feeble turn-out tonight. I doubt if there were 100 in the house.

Admittedly a satellite screening rather than a show in the flesh is a new departure for this theatre but the Cameo seems to have no problem rounding up a good crowd for screenings of opera, drama and dance so maybe it will catch on here as well.

I think dance fans missed a real treat not coming to see this production of Notre Dame de Paris from La Scala. Maybe if they had billed it as The Hunchback of Notre Dame it would have brought in the crowds who, like me, have an abiding memory of Quasimodo swinging down on a rope to rescue the lovely Maureen O'Hara. Here's that scene from the 1939 movie, way before my time so goodness knows when and where I saw it but it was burnt on my memory.
Now it doesn't happen quite like that in Roland Petit's ballet but the whole ballet in a French production from 1996 is on Youtube in half a dozen chunks and here's the bit that has the rescue in it. You get a good idea of the terrific costumes and staging and the general style of the piece from this. It's well worth going onto Youtube and watching the other sections, unless you'd rather see it live in Milan where it's running for another few weeks.  I'd certainly prefer to see shows in the flesh but satellite transmissions are a good substitute especially when you can see world class performers.

One of the little things I like about them is the feeling you get of almost being in the venue and this was very much the case tonight.  They are differently styled as theatres but recognisably of the same spirit and share a dark red, cream and gold colour scheme so that the walls of La Scala seemed to merge into the Festival Theatre's as they approached the proscenium and the laurel wreath above ours replaced the shield above theirs.  Quite spooky.

Ever since I saw Nixon in China at the festival in 1980something I've been a fan of John Adams but have very seldom heard his music live so it was with great interest that I went to the Usher Hall last night to hear the RSNO play Harmonielehre under their new musical director Peter Oundjian.

Oundjian isn't as foreign as his name suggests and indeed has a Scottish granny and can do the accent when he wants to raise a smile.  He's carrying on Stéphane Denève's practice of chatting to the audience about the music and throwing in little personal anecdotes.  It's a practice I thoroughly applaud.  (It saves me buying a programme for one thing which is a consideration when a G&T at half-time sets you back a fiver).

He told us that the inspiration for Harmonielehre came when Adams, after months of trying vainly to come up with a commissioned symphonic piece, dreamt that he saw a huge tanker in San Francisco bay rise out of the water and take off like a rocket.  That's just how this music starts.  I guess you could also compare it to the Big Bang. It gets much more thoughtful and lyrical later on which is maybe not what you would expect from a minimalist but in the final movement (again inspired by a dream this time about his unborn daughter riding through space on the shoulders of a medieval mystic) the characteristic forward drive of minimalist repetition returns and sweeps us to the climax and rather sudden ending when perhaps the baby falls off.

This concert was billed as an American Festival and the first half featured Bernstein and Gershwin, two composers who illustrate that most interesting aspect of American musicians, both of them successful on Broadway as well as on the concert platform.

They're putting out the red carpet for another great minimalist, Steve Reich, in Glasgow tonight. I shall have to squeeze onto a returning rugby fans train if I go.  The last time I did that Claire, Siobhan and I unknowingly breached an alcohol ban but by the time the ticket man got to us the bottle of fizz was empty so no criminal proceedings ensued.

In 1985 the Fife village of Freuchie played in and won the final of the national village cricket championship at Lords.  Many years before I had slept (I think at Hogmanay) in their pavilion, which at that time was being used by the family of a schoolfriend of mine as a holiday home.

Perhaps the club bolstered their finances by renting the place out in the off season.  I never knew the details of the arrangement and I never stayed there again.  Since Freuchie bestrides a main road I've passed through many times but I don't believe I had tarried until Sunday past when I attended a Fife Jazz Festival gig there.

The festival has produced a great weekend of jazz these past few years that I've been going.  They have always put together an attractive programme of excellent musicians from both home and abroad.  What did I see this year?

From the home of jazz a blues band featuring the son of the legendary Muddy Waters, a quartet headed by a tall saxophonist and a short trumpeter and in Freuchie a charming pianist and singer from Oklahoma in company with a wizard on sax and clarinet plus an interloper from Australia on guitar. 

From the frozen north an accomplished big band set the feet tapping with an evening of Mingus compositions and a lively lady gave it laldy on a number of sparky electric guitars.

From much closer to home The Inverkeithing Community Big Band filled the ballroom of the Bay Hotel in Kinghorn on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with the swinging sounds of Porter, Gershwin and the like.  They were led by one of the organisers of the World Saxophone Congress that took place in St Andrews in July and two more of the WSC executive committee played as guest artists so they didn't lack for a professional helping hand instrumentally.  One of the tenor players did some singing but the vocal star was a glamorous lady of a certain age from Kirkcaldy.  Where was she when I lived there? 

It was not only the jazz festival that lit up my week musically.  The SCO gave a great concert with James Macmillan's Oboe Concerto sandwiched between Stravinsky and Mendelssohn.  Modern classical music is not everyone's cup of tea and it's not always mine but this energetic piece has a sparkle and a liveliness to delight the ear of the least receptive.