Underground music

At last, someone discovers how to make money playing the theorbo.
Thanks to David Hill for the cartoon. More here.

Córdoba

These characters are Galatea and Polyphemus. You can tell it's Polyphemus because of the eye in the middle of his forehead. This large mosaic from the second century AD was dug up 50 years ago in Córdoba and now adorns a wall in the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in the city, along with various other equally splendid mosaics.

I was in Córdoba at the weekend to play a concert for the Sociedad de la Vihuela, the Spanish lute society. Such a specialised audience could have been intimidating, but they were actually extremely warm and friendly and the concert went well. José Romanillos, maker of Julian Bream's guitars, was in the audience and came to chat to me afterwards. A good weekend.

My concert was in the Casa Góngora, in the old part of the city near the Mezquita. Luis de Góngora, as it happens, was a Cordoban poet who wrote La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea in 1613, long before the mosaic was uncovered. The Mezquita or mosque is an astonishing building from Córdoba's Arab past: endless pink and white arches below a low roof, with a cathedral plonked in the middle of it by the Christian reconquerors. I wandered around it for an hour just admiring the space.