I had a very musical weekend indeed. On Saturday night, I went to what I believe is the only Brighton Festival event I’ve ever attended, despite having lived here for three years: Came So Far for Beauty, an evening of Leonard Cohen songs performed by other people. Those "other people" happened to include Nick Cave, so even though I’ve never been a massive Leonard Cohen fan (he’s got some great songs, but some teeth-grindingly awful arrangements), there was no way I could miss this concert.

It was an entrancing evening. The parade of performers - everyone from the stunning Laurie Anderson and the charismatic Teddy Thompson to the sadly underwhelming Handsome Family - was accompanied by an excellent and very subtle backing band. The atmosphere in the Brighton Dome was perfect; you could hear a pin drop during the songs (many of which were very subdued and very minimal), but there was always uproarious applause at the end of each piece.

My only minor gripe would be the number of lyric sheets on hand. Like Jeremy, I felt very nervous watching people try to sing their hearts out while constantly glancing pseudo-surreptitiously at the papers in their hands. Rufus Wainright, in particular, would have come across as much more suavely amusing if he hadn’t been reading the lyrics to every song as he sang, and Nick Cave would have been much more suavely menacing if he hadn’t been doing the same thing (but then, Mr. Cave was reading the lyrics to his own songs at the last concert I attended, so maybe I shouldn’t have expected anything different). But lyric sheets aside, the evening was wonderful. Maybe I’ll have to start listening to Leonard Cohen after all.

Warning - geekdom ahead:

On Sunday afternoon, Jeremy and I enjoyed a rather different type of musical experience: we went up to London to see Howard Shore conduct his Lord of the Rings Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall. It was just over a year ago that Jeremy and I were at the Royal Festival Hall for the Fellowship of the Ring score, and I remember that at the time, we were desperately hoping he would come back and perform more music from the second and third films.

Our wishes were (pretty much) granted in the form of a six-part symphony consisting of music from all three films. I say "pretty much" because, while the performance was great, I did feel that the music from The Two Towers and The Return of the King got slightly short shrift in the whole piece. Some of my favorite pieces of music from The Two Towers, especially, were either completely absent or just glanced upon before the orchestra moved on to something else.

There were a few other slight disappointments. Once again, the male choir really lacked punch, as did some of the individual instruments; the Hardanger fiddle on the Rohan theme was fairly lost in the orchestra, and the lone bodhran just came across as an intermittent, slightly off-putting "bappity-bappity-bappity" sound. And the songs sung in English - including "Into the West", which won an Oscar for Best Song, even though the songs from Cold Mountain were, in my opinion, much, much better - were real weak points in an otherwise excellent score.

But I’m giving the wrong impression here - I enjoyed myself immensely. The music as a whole is fantastic, and when it all really came together yesterday, it was incredibly stirring. There’s nothing like experiencing a full orchestra and choir, live, right in front of you; it really gets the blood pumping. Occasionally, a single note or chord would be hit and the sound would hang there in the concert hall, perfectly suspended for a fraction of a second, giving me shivers of delight. Those sublime moments made up for any other shortcomings the performance might have exhibited.

And my Lord of the Rings trip is not over yet: in just 24 hours - 24 hours! - The Return of the King will be out on DVD. O frabjous day! I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow night…