Avon New Cut

The River Avon, after it runs underneath that dramatic sight, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, splits in two as it reaches Bristol. It feeds into the Floating Harbour, the large body of water at the heart of the city, kept in place by a series of lockgates and ingeniously engineered pumps. Houseboats, sailing boats, rowing boats, ferries, paddleboards and canoes keep the waters busy, while pubs, restaurants, cafes, blocks of flats skirt its edge. But the other day, tired of the crowds, I decided to follow the river's other route. Caught between two main roads, with the footpath itself between the river and a disused railway line, it's not necessarily the most obvious route to walk. Few people do. It's perfectly safe, I should say. You're in full view of the road and it's not far from one end to the other. But on a grey day, at low tide with the mud thick and glistening, the trees thick and dark on the opposite bank, it feels like a lost place. I spotted a yellow bicycle half-submerged in the mud in one place, a shopping trolley in another. Seagulls stood on the river banks. There were no boats. I've never seen any boats on this stretch. It's strangely deep and steep-sided for, what I had assumed, was the original river course. Turns out that isn't the case: this is in fact the Avon New Cut, made in the first decade of the 19th-century as part of the Floating Harbour scheme in a bid to divert the tidal river. And if humans seem to ignore its muted appeal nowadays, the wildlife hasn't. There are over 30 species of bird seen here, over 20 species of butterfly and day moth, over 30 species of trees and 120 of flowers.

Maconchy string quartets

Elizabeth Maconchy String Quartet No. 3 (1938) played by the Signum Quartet.

Smoked salmon and Bach

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, has died at the age of 82. His book Musicophilia is a fascinating volume of tales of music and the brain, and the strangeness, complexity and beauty of how the two interact. The contents page alone gives an idea of its scope and richness: from 'Brainworms, sticky music and catchy tunes' to 'Papa blows his nose in G: absolute pitch', from 'In living stereo: why we have two ears' to 'Music and identity: dementia and music therapy'. Sacks was a lifelong music-lover. 'When I was five I was told I was asked what my favourite things in the world were and I said "smoked salmon and Bach".  And 70 years later it's still pretty much the same.'

Radio blur

Apologies for the self-promotional plug. It's not meant to be that. While I was in Lucerne, I did a very brief turn on Swiss Radio, straight after the concert, on a programme hosted by Patricia Moreno. The whole thing was a bit of a blur. A 5am start in the UK, a flight to Switzerland, an afternoon of interviews, then one of the most intense concerts I've been to in a long while, a dash as soon as the applause started to the lift that whisked me and the other journalist up to the radio studio in the hall, and then straight onto live radio – which was all in Swiss German… what a surreal experience.

http://www.srf.ch/sendungen/weltklasse-auf-srf2-kultur/lucerne-festival-weltenma-h-ler

Plus, here are my slightly more considered thoughts on the two concerts: http://www.classical-music.com/blog/lucerne-festival-orchestra-andris-nelsons

Lucerne

Last week I was in beautiful Lucerne for a feature for BBC Music Magazine. It's a tough life…

I was there to find out about the future of the Lucerne Festival's remarkable orchestra, revived in 2003 by conductor Claudio Abbado and artistic director Michael Haefliger. Hand-picked by Abbado, the musicians formed an ensemble that instantly achieved remarkable things, with their concerts and recordings garnering the sort-of all-round rave reviews rarely seen. But when Abbado died last year, at the age of 80, the orchestra was left with the tough, emotionally-fraught question of what do next. With the announcement of Riccardo Chailly as the new artistic director, as of next year, the ensemble is entering a new era. I spoke to Haefliger and four of the musicians about what they think the future might hold. It was a privilege to speak to them and to hear them play, the first time I'd heard them live.

Bristol Proms

Jan Lisiecki at the Bristol Proms