Banana Options, whipped cream and Country Living..

A lovely conclusion to rather a grey and rainy day!

Today is annually dubbed "Blue Monday" by the media, who insist that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year. To me, Blue Monday is a one-act mini-opera by George Gershwin, almost unknown but very much worth getting to know. Rhapsody in Blue is wonderful too, and for several years now I've been trying, phrase by phrase, to learn the upper part of the arrangement for piano duet - it's fiendishly difficult and I'll never manage it, but it's fun to try! I adore his songs, too, many of which are based around the five notes of the pentatonic scale, some of which are jolly and energetic and others of which are beautifully lyrical. Much of it sums up musically for me the era of the 1920s, an intriguing and lively decade through which I would love to have lived.

Gershwin died of a brain tumour before he was even 40 years old. Who knows what other gorgeous music might have been written had he lived the same number of years again?