WE were paddling atop an expanse of shin-deep water, and our guide was in the middle of a long recital of facts about the old Seven Mile Bridge, the decaying concrete structure we had just passed beneath.
And he illumines every stage of his long recital of his past history, showing especial tenderness to Miranda as he reassures her "a cherubin thou wast that didst preserve me".
Fiction set against such a huge sweep of history can often be in danger of recreating the standard school lessons where, as the teacher drones on about how this happened and then this happened in a long recital of forgotten facts, most of the pupils are sent to sleep.
Kevin and Heidi Grant Murphy have long been recital partners, and over the years at the Met, Ms. Murphy was often coached by her husband, sometimes a challenging situation.
On Sunday she presents a long-awaited recital with works by Handel, Schumann and her husband, Peter Lieberson.
The long, leaden recitals of awards, club memberships and honorary degrees massed on the page were distasteful pills that writers, and readers, choked down dutifully each day.
Mr. Aimard, 44, made his long-awaited Carnegie Hall recital debut on Monday night.
As a performance, it's thrilling at the outset and full of vertigo-inducing, reflective wonder, though by the fourth or fifth piece of Grimaud's hour-long, water-themed recital of pieces by Debussy, Ravel, Liszt and others, some members of the audience were beginning to feel waterlogged and as marooned as the piano-player at the centre of the hall.
She makes her long-overdue Carnegie Hall recital debut on Saturday, singing songs from her third solo album, a newly released collection of standards called "Happy Songs," which promises to be as widely acclaimed as its predecessors, "How Glory Goes" and "Way Back to Paradise".
After the recital a long line of admirers gathered in the lobby, where Mr. Fray signed copies of his Virgin Classics recordings.
Returning after a curiously long intermission during their recital at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, a program devoted to the complete Brahms sonatas, the violinist Gidon Kremer and the pianist Krystian Zimerman tore into the agitated first movement of the D minor work, taking a bracing tempo and emphasizing its volatile mood swings.
