Once Upon a Tchaikovsky

I had a meeting at Channel 4 today to discuss one or two ideas for musical documentaries. It's actually quite difficult to come up with an idea which works as a musical documentary whilst meeting the hard-hitting, experimental style which C4 prides itself on. I took my footage of Soho and we had a lengthy chat about wider issues. I do love Channel 4. I love pretty much everything it stands for and feel very much at home within its curiously 1980s-looking head quarters on Horseferry Road.

The rest of the day has been spent pottering. I played Nathan the two Brass orchestrations I've been working on over the last week, the first of which, the one where the cast sing their letters, actually made him weep, which felt like a rather good sign.

We took ourselves down to a print shop in the afternoon to get a quote on a print run of sheet music which might be good merchandise for Brass audiences. The show could also be an opportunity to flog a few requiem CDs, which continues to be a priority until all investors have been paid back in full.

This evening we went to see Malificent, the new take on Sleeping Beauty staring the newly bedamed Angelina Jolie and Sam Riley, whom I actually cast in his first ever feature film, Control! What a claim to fame! Jolie acted beautifully and her English accent was fairly good with the exception of her use of the "o" vowel as in "hot." Americans will insist on turning it into "hawt" to rhyme with "ought", which is, frankly, unacceptable!

The little touch of genius in the film was its use of the song Once Upon A Dream, which, of course featured in the original Disney cartoon. The new version is performed by the incomparable Lana Del Ray, but sadly, no mention is made in the credits of the role Tchaikovsky played in the piece. It was, after all, the main melody from his Sleeping Beauty ballet which Disney pinched as the basis of their song. Just because a melody is out of copyright it doesn't mean it no longer has a writer.

I sent Nathan off to my masseur this afternoon and he arrived home clutching a copy of a local magazine with a picture of our wedding inside. I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of seeing pictures of it, or having people come up to congratulate us. Just this week another three emails from strangers arrived. I still feel incredibly blessed.