Susan Tomes» Books archives – Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer

Not telling a story

Susan Tomes — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:20:07 +0000

This morning I was coaching a very nice piano trio. We were talking about those ‘abstract’ works of Beethoven where the composer builds his material out of little musical ‘cells’ rather than obvious melodies and counter-melodies. Such works are sometimes more difficult for audiences to make sense of, yet often very satisfying for musicians to work on and immerse themselves in.

In the afternoon I felt suddenly very tired and lay down to listen to Radio 4’s Open Book programme. Tim Parks (author of ‘Teach Us to Sit Still’) was talking about his recovery from a strange illness a few years ago. He spoke about the healing role of meditation, and said that the experience of ‘letting go of words’ in meditation had profoundly changed his approach to writing. As he signed off, he quietly said something like, ‘It made me wonder whether narrative is actually a bit perverse, and somehow sick.’ This fascinating thought chimed mysteriously with what we were talking about in the morning.

Not telling a story is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Independent review of new music books

Susan Tomes — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:14:56 +0000

Today’s Independent newspaper has a review of new books on music, with several paragraphs devoted to mine. Click here if you’d like to read the article by the Independent’s literary editor Boyd Tonkin.

Independent review of new music books is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Win a free copy of Out of Silence

Susan Tomes — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:00:55 +0000

BBC Music Magazine is giving away eight copies of my book ‘Out of Silence’. To enter the draw, all you have to do is answer the question: of which trio is Susan Tomes the pianist? The answer’s easy to find on this website.

The draw closes on the 9th August, so if you’re interested, click the link above and have a go.

Win a free copy of Out of Silence is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The Oldie magazine review

Susan Tomes — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:09:31 +0000

another oldie

Richard Osborne devotes a large part of his Music column in ‘The Oldie’ magazine (Summer 2010) to my new book. As I don’t have a picture of the magazine I’ve chosen instead an illustration of an real oldie, one of the 700-year-old oaks in Richmond Park.

Richard Osborne writes in The Oldie: ‘Pianist and five-star essayist Susan Tomes … The twelve months [of Out of Silence] deliver twelve chapters each containing nine or ten short essays. Some are prompted by a concert or an event; others are simply serendipity, such as the delightful ‘In Praise of Idleness’, inspired by a Bertrand Russell volume discovered in a charity shop. For a parent with a musically gifted child the collection is essential reading.’

The Oldie magazine review is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

International Piano magazine review

Susan Tomes — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:33:43 +0000

Out of Silence has been reviewed by Julian Haylock in the July/August issue of International Piano magazine. The review is not online, so here’s a glimpse:

‘It is remarkable just how much Tomes manages to find illumination in things that may initially appear musically unpromising. … even celebrity chefs unwittingly provide much food for musical thought in this unputdownable volume. By the end, I felt I not only knew more about the author, but also about myself. Highly recommended.’

International Piano magazine review is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Musical Recipes

Susan Tomes — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:18:39 +0000

Our much-used copy of Claudia Roden’s ‘Book of Middle Eastern Food’ has finally fallen apart, and we’ve bought a new, updated copy. In its honour, Bob made some lovely pastries filled with spinach, aubergine and onion with various cheeses, and a tabouli bursting with home-grown parsley.

We talked about how our favourite cookery books combine cultural glimpses with helpful recipes. Claudia Roden’s book is a good example. You move smoothly from reading about bean soups made in pots on the roof-top, or the daily task of making yoghurt, or the doughs and shapes of pastries favoured by different communities, to discovering how to make these things yourself. As you cook, you feel you’re entering into the world described by the cookery writer. I lamented that this can’t really happen with books about music. Yes, you can describe concerts and so on, but you can’t end each section with a recipe for how to make a lovely piece of your own:

500g of assorted notes
125 grams of accidentals
100 grams of minims
200 grams each of crotchets and quavers
50 grams of dots
A sprinkling of triplets
A generous cupful of rests

Pick through the notes carefully, removing any double flats or sharps …

Musical Recipes is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘Out of Silence’ mentioned in New Yorker

Susan Tomes — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:40:56 +0000

My new book is mentioned in this week’s New Yorker magazine by the leading writer on music, Alex Ross. Alex’s column in the magazine this week is about ballet and its sometimes vexed relationship with the musical score.

Read the article in the New Yorker.

Order ‘Out of Silence’ from Amazon.

To order by phone from Boydell and Brewer’s US outlet in Rochester NY, call 585 275-0419 in the US. To order from Boydell in the US by e-mail, write to boydell@boydellusa.net

‘Out of Silence’ mentioned in New Yorker is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

More book reviews

Susan Tomes — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:03:41 +0000

Two more reviews of my book ‘Out of Silence’ have appeared. As neither is online, here’s a glimpse of what they said:

‘In my experience, highly gifted musicians often find it extremely difficult to articulate their ideas about music and reveal the secrets of their craft through writing. Not so Susan Tomes. Her latest book, ‘Out of Silence’, is packed full of fascinating material reflecting upon the difficult and sometimes intangible issues that face a busy professional pianist…Yet the approach here is anything but self-centred, as can so often be the case with autobiographical material. Rather, what emerges from these pages is Tomes’s strong sense of humility, her quirky humour, and above all her tremendous love and driving enthusiasm for her work. … a compelling read.’

BBC Music magazine, July 2010

‘A glorious collection of essays. ..After ‘Beyond the Notes’ and ‘A Musician’s Alphabet’, with this third volume Susan Tomes joins that small band of musicians whose literary skill runs parallel to their musical talent. All of them are male, most are pianists: Glenn Gould, Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and Stephen Hough, for example…

Tomes’s work reminds me of JB Priestly’s life-affirming collection of essays, ‘Delight’. I can offer no higher praise.… Tomes extracts on almost every page a life lesson for the rest of us, whether or not we are musicians.’

Editor’s Choice for July 2010, Classic FM magazine

More book reviews is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Listen to Australian radio interview

Susan Tomes — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 07:51:57 +0000

I did an interview yesterday with Australian Radio’s ‘The Music Show’, hosted by composer Andrew Ford for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was broadcast in Australia a few hours ago and is now available via their website for downloading or to listen online. If you’d like to listen, or to read more about it, click here.

Listen to Australian radio interview is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

TLS review of ‘Out of Silence’

Susan Tomes — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:49:49 +0000

An exciting moment this afternoon: a friend called to say that he’d just read a review – the first one, in fact – of my new book in the Times Literary Supplement. I couldn’t find it online, so I ran down the road to the newsagent’s to buy a hard copy. Here’s a snippet of John Greening’s review:

‘Tomes has a particular understanding of humanity rare in writing about music. She has indeed looked ‘beyond the notes’ and seen how the world perceives musicians.’

Click here if you’d like to read the whole review on the ‘Out of Silence’ section of the Book Reviews page.

TLS review of ‘Out of Silence’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

On the shelf (or table)

Susan Tomes — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:32:47 +0000

Yesterday a friend was visiting Oxford and sent me this photo of my new book on the ‘welcome table’ in Blackwell’s bookshop. It’s the one with the black cover in the centre of the picture. As I haven’t yet seen any copies of the book in a store near me, I was very happy to see this evidence that someone in Oxford is taking an interest.

On the shelf (or table) is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Link to Guardian Review

Susan Tomes — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:50:39 +0000

If you would like to read the excerpts from ‘Out of Silence’ in today’s Guardian, click here.

Link to Guardian Review is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Book excerpts in the Guardian

Susan Tomes — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:10:16 +0000

The Guardian is publishing excerpts from Out of Silence in the Review section on Saturday 20 March. I’ll post the link on Saturday when I know it.

In the meantime, many thanks to everyone who silently toasted my book from several different countries and three continents on Thursday evening at my ‘virtual book launch party’. It was rather a special feeling at 18:00 hours. I was with a friend in the Royal Academy of Arts, aware that there were only two of us getting ready to raise a glass (or a home-made iced muffin, to be truthful). Nevertheless at the appointed moment, thinking about you all and hoping that some of you were thinking about me, I had what Shakespeare might call a ‘wondrous strange’ feeling. It was very fun, in a subtle kind of way. And actually, it was at least as much fun as some of the real book launches I’ve attended. The whole experience reminded me of Hamlet’s observation: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

Book excerpts in the Guardian is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Virtual book launch party

Susan Tomes — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:30:10 +0000

Thursday’s the day when Out of Silence is officially published. As I haven’t managed to organise a book launch party, how about a virtual book launch that day?

At 18:00 hours (UK time) on Thursday 18 March, I’m going to raise a glass to toast my readers, wherever they are. If you’d like to take part in my cyber-launch, please join in by raising something at the same time – not necessarily a glass of wine, but maybe a cup of coffee, a biscuit or a square of chocolate. 18:00 in London will be 19:00 hours in Paris, 14:00 in New York and Toronto, and 11:00 in San Francisco, if I’ve understood US Daylight Saving Time correctly. Let the virtual world ring with the cheerful clinking of imaginary cups and glasses!

Virtual book launch party is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Another excerpt on Boydell’s blog

Susan Tomes — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:33:06 +0000

My new book, Out of Silence, comes out on March 18. I haven’t even seen a copy yet, though I’m hoping to see one early next week. In the meantime, the publisher, Boydell Press, has posted another excerpt from the book on its website. You can read the new excerpt by visiting Boydell’s blog.

Another excerpt on Boydell’s blog is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Visiting from the Elysian Fields

Susan Tomes — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:04 +0000

Someone asked me today whether my new book, Out of Silence, is a collection of my blog posts. It isn’t; the book was written a year before I had the idea of starting a website or a blog. I suppose the experience of writing ‘a pianist’s yearbook’ may have given me an appetite for more of the same, but the book and the blog don’t overlap. In any case the blog is much more about daily life.

The book was motivated by some of the questions which people ask after concerts, questions which imply that they imagine musicians taking brief sabbaticals from the Elysian Fields to come and sprinkle lovely music about like icing sugar, before skipping back to lie on a cloud and snooze. I’m still taken aback when people say things like, ‘Presumably, with your pianist’s hands, you never do the washing-up?’ I wanted the book to show something of how the real world and the artistic world interweave – for me at least.

Visiting from the Elysian Fields is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘The Cello Suites’

Susan Tomes — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:47:49 +0000

Today’s Independent has my review of Eric Siblin’s book, ‘The Cello Suites’. Siblin, a former pop critic, describes how he fell in love unexpectedly with Bach’s cello music and set himself to find out all he could about the composer, and about cellist Pablo Casals, the first person to bring the Bach cello suites to a wider public in the 20th century. Click here to read the review.

‘The Cello Suites’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Diapason magazine

Susan Tomes — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:05:57 +0000

A nice surprise today: Bob came back from a meeting with a magazine page brought along by a colleague. It was from the February issue of the leading French record magazine Diapason, one of whose editors had taken the new Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music as the subject of his editorial. The Cambridge Companion, an expert anthology of chapters by historians and musicologists, also contains a number of short ‘personal takes’ by people with practical experience of the recording industry, and there’s one by me about my own experience of making records. To my surprise, this article was the focus of Diapason’s editorial. There was a photo of me and several paragraphs of my article translated into French. ‘Her text is an open door onto a work which gives us all the material for proper reflection on what nourishes our passion for recordings.’

Diapason magazine is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

New book extract

Susan Tomes — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:00:01 +0000

My publisher, Boydell Press, has put a short extract from my new book Out of Silence on their blog. You can read it by clicking here. The blog also shows the book’s cover image for the first time. I’m irrationally proud of this cover because I took the photograph! It aims to give the impression of someone coming ‘out of silence’ and into a public space, a journey which performers know very well.

New book extract is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

An unexpected pairing

Susan Tomes — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:44:53 +0000

A most unexpected and heartwarming New Year gift arrived today in the form of a comment made in a Times book review by the distinguished cellist Natalie Clein. Reviewing a new book on Bach’s cello suites, she muses on the difficulty of writing about music, and says, ‘The most successful writers are often musicians themselves – Robert Schumann in the 19th century, for example, and Susan Tomes in the 21st.’

She could not have known that my new book was inspired by Robert Schumann’s habit of keeping diaries, so this pairing of Schumann’s name with mine, though utterly surprising, also felt like a wonderful omen.

An unexpected pairing is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog