Venetian Mornings

About

Venetian Mornings is dedicated to my dear friend Jack Body as a celebration of his 70th birthday. We first met while visiting Venice independently in the 1960s. One night we went to hear Peter Maxwell Davies's new work Vesalii Icones performed by Davies's group the Pierrot Players. It was a very humid evening; we could hear continuous distant rumblings of thunder as we went into the concert hall and eventually a huge storm broke. We went onto emergency lighting during the piece. Jack introduced himself after the piece. When we left the hall, we discovered Venice had been cut off from the world, a tornado had come out of the sea, overturned a ferry and destroyed a camping ground. A number of people were killed - 12, maybe - but if it had been earlier or later, many more would have died. After that concert Jack and I would meet for breakfast each morning, and have been friends ever since.