From the start of the official Edinburgh Festival 70 years ago, classical music has been at its heart and it has drawn music’s great exponents to perform there.

Perhaps Jim C Wilson, marooned in the gods at the Usher Hall, was too hot to warm to the talk given by the legendary pianist. But did he maybe succumb to the sheer dynamic intensity of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata itself in performance?

             MISERERE

A hot blue August afternoon and we're

in the gods at the Usher Hall. The seats

are too tiny (my knees reach my chin): sheer

hell as cramps attack our limbs, while the heat's

increasing each second. Five thousand feet            

below (or so it seems), a dot of a man,

who can hardly be heard, reads from a sheet

of paper. I hear F Sharp and A, can

distinguish Appassionata.

Forty minutes still to go, and I feel

my circulation's ceased. The sonata

is being lectured on: an intricate spiel

that's passing me by. Now there's thirty-three                  

minutes to go. But wait – a change. A tale,

a diversion has been introduced. We                   

hear how two words were confused (but I fail

to find it funny). Then all through the hall

I hear shifting and creaking, an outbreak

of clattering coughs. There's relief (though small )

at this slight change of tone. I now can make it

through to the end. We wilting, stiffened folk                  

 have been revived by Alfred Brendel's joke.