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August 19 & 20

Yosuke had us arriving in Lecco and awaiting Federico the next day. He, in fact arrived just in time for lunch 〓 anybody reading this will by now have understood that food is of a central importance to this quartet. We all love to eat and sometimes it seems that anything else we do during the day is a way to bridge the time until the next meal. I still tell the story of once, when I was performing with Peter Schidlof (Amadeus Quartet). After we went on stage and sat down, he leaned over to me and asked, “Jim, where are we eating after the concert?” He also had his priorities!

In any case, after our reunion with Federico, some joyous catching up on news, and a quite acceptable lunch, we decided to rehearse, knowing that it would be at least 5 hours until the next meal. I politely went to the reception of this fine hotel to ask (in Italian) for a room where we could rehearse. They politely told me that they would only have a room for this purpose if we would pay for it. Funny, but sometimes maybe it is a disadvantage to speak the language. Sadao got on the phone in English, asked to speak to the manager, and in 5 minutes had a rehearsal hall for us.

This turned out to be a rather intensive rehearsal. Although we knew the program already, there was still a lot we wanted to do better and/or differently. We seem to do this a lot, as we never really have time to get into a routine, and we are all 4 always ready to try something different. It keeps things always interesting and fresh. It also takes a bit longer, so we had not gotten through the whole program before it was time for dinner.
We asked for some recommendations and ended up at a very nice restaurant near the lake. I have to confess that one of the reasons for choosing this restaurant was that we could sit outside, meaning we could smoke! The culatello, bresaula and of course the rabbit will remain in my memory.

The next noon we were invited to Roberto’s country house for lunch. Roberto is not only the organizer of the festival in which we were performing, as well as some other festivals, but is also a wonderful guitarist, with whom I recorded the Gershwin songs a few years ago. He said, just get directions, go through the new tunnel up the hill and you will be here in 20 minutes. So I got wonderfully specific directions in the hotel and we headed out in the golf ball Honda. After about half an hour we had just gotten out of tunnels and were still heading up the hill with no sign of Maggio, which was where we were to be going. Finally, I said, “Hold on, this doesn’t seem right, let me call Roberto”. In fact we had taken a ridiculously long detour and Roberto talked me into continuing for another 20 minutes through the valleys. Obviously, lunch was waiting for us. In fact, the way down to the hotel and back up to the concert took only 20 minutes each way (now that we knew where we were going). Moral: don’t trust hotel directions, especially if they consult the internet!

The concert that evening was in a wonderful church in Cremeno, to which we arrived well before the concert to be able to do some more rehearsing. About that time it started raining heavily, so everybody was worried if any public would come to the concert. However, at the last minute, the church suddenly filled up and we heard a large public of enthusiastic music freaks. It would be hard to imagine a warmer reception.

After the concert, the mayor presented us with some very large, heavily illustrated and heavy books about Cremeno, some of which we are still carrying around. Roberto invited us to a restaurant, which stayed open just for us (we knew about this before the concert!), which meant that as the only customers we were also allowed to smoke. They started out by bringing us gnocchi di ricotta, which I would describe as a ricotta souffle. Heavenly! Suffice it to say that after a beginning like this, it could only be a spectacular meal. All is well which ends well.

-Jim

（訳文）

８月１９日と２０日

洋介が運転してレッコに到着し、次の日フェデリコが来るのを待った。フェデリコは、ランチにぴったり到着した―　これを読んでいる方はもうお分かりかもしれないが、我らクァルテットには食べ物が非常な重要さを持つのだ。私達はみな食べるのが大好きで、時々、一日の中でしている他のことは次のご飯までの‘つなぎ’みたいなものに思えるくらいだ。一度、私がピーター・シドロフ（アマデウス・クァルテット）と一緒に演奏した時のこと。ステージで着席したあと、彼は私の方に乗り出して、“ジム、コンサート終わったら何食べる？”と聞いてきた。彼にも彼の優先事項があったのだ！