Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
During a visit to Scotland in 1970, I went for a holiday to Orkney: really just to see the things that everybody goes to see, such as the prehistoric stone circle remains and above all the Cathedral of St. Magnus in Kirkwall—which, apart from being an extraordinary architectural monument, has musical associations. Those of us who have done music at university are familiar with the 12th-Century ‘Hymn to St. Magnus’, which was composed for that building. And so I went there and it was rainy and rather grim; but that you expect and put up with.