Kirsty Gunn: From the Walkyre to Mike’s labradors, art has the power to transform

Still shaking from the electrifying Walkyre performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra last weekend at the Usher Hall, I went along to meet Canongate’s Francis Bickmore first thing on Monday morning for a coffee. He’d been too busy getting ready for the opening of the Book Festival to go to the concert so I told him all about how I’d never heard the RSNO on such immaculately riveting form, playing under the cracking directorship of Andrew Davies along with their mighty line-up of powerful singers; as if each note of Wagner’s mighty score had been articulated by every musician there, instrument by instrument, note by note, to form one piece of mighty musical...writing. Is how I described it, because of course then we went on to talk about books and the Book Festival and why we love reading so much.