Will Russell and I explored the squares around St. Mary’s Church (and, of course, we listened to the trumpeter playing on the hour) before exploring the Jewish quarter, and the impressive Wawel Castle. Kraków is built on a beautiful scale; everything feels surprisingly local, and a lot can be done in-between the hourly trumpet calls. I haven’t been to Poland for a while, so it was great to tick some of my favourite culinary boxes, starting with a borscht (a traditional beetroot soup) for lunch.

I have performed in various churches in Kraków several times in the past—so long ago it was before I started keeping this online journal. I used to visit quite regularly to play cornetto, alongside David Staff, with Collegium Zielinski in the Music in Old Krakow festival. We performed and recorded music by Zielenski with Emma Kirkby and Joel Frederiksen, and we performed Monteverdi’s Vespers here as well. We even played in St Mark’s in Venice with Collegium Zielinski, which was the impetus for starting this blog. As I walked around Kraków it was great to reminisce about those times, now about 10 years ago. Krakow was, dare I say it, a little bit less refined in those days: render crumbled from many of the old buildings on the Grodzka (the main thoroughfare from the castle to the market square); now unrestored buildings are a much rarer sight. Thankfully, Kraków has retained its wonderful character!

The concert with Christophe Rousset’s Les Talens Lyriques featured the German baritone Benjamin Appl; we performed works by Mozart, Haydn, Salieri, Sarto and Martin y Soler. We also performed some instrumental works including Mozart’s Overture from La Clemenza di Tito, and his ‘Linz’ Symphony (No. 36): a delight. I particularly enjoyed playing Salieri's 'Torbido mar che freme', which featured some wonderful natural brass chords—we were positioned on the far left of the orchestra, to the left of the horn players, from the conductor's perspective. Although this probably meant that we played a bit louder than usual (with the horns to our left we were in the direct line of their bells), it did mean that we could tune these four-part chords as a brass section more easily.

It was lovely to listen to Mozart’s ‘Un bacio di mano’ (KV541)—a tune I recognised from Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. The concert was very well-received and we performed two encores: the last was a piece by Haydn with two very prominent (and catchy) trumpet calls! I look forward to repeating this programme at La Seine Musicale in Paris in June.