Rod Stewart cancer | Blue Planet distillery | David Denton | Lammermuir Festival

Sir Rod Stewart has spoken for the first time about his treatment for cancer, a Scottish distillery is linking up with Blue Planet, and David Denton has announced his retirement.

East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival has reached the grand old age of ten and there’s a sense of celebrating with old friends across this year’s programme. The Dunedin Consort (*****), for example, who have given plenty of memorable (and memorably quirky) concerts down Lammermuir’s decade-long history, and who brought joy, passion and precision to Bach and Vivaldi in their concert on the festival’s opening Friday evening. With two Brandenburg Concertos, two Bach Suites and two Vivaldi concertos cunningly arranged in a palindrome across the evening, was there nonetheless the chance that it might have been a bit – well, samey? Not a bit of it. Conductor John Butt’s crack period players played up the works’ distinctive personalities, from the grandeur and expansiveness of their opening Bach First Orchestral Suite to a nervy, dramatic Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, delivered with astonishing clarity and grit by violinist Cecilia Bernardini – seldom can the concerto have sounded more operatic.