Everyone sees Brexit through their own lens. This is mine. When I was small, playing the piano was my favourite thing. I had heard that Mozart and Schubert came from Austria. Bach and Beethoven and Schumann came from Germany. Debussy and Ravel came from France. And so on. Those countries were just pretty pictures in […]

I haven’t written much on my blog recently, for two reasons: 1. My website was hacked (aargh), and I have been struggling to deal with the technical issues that resulted. 2. I have been working on a new book. More of that in the new year! As we come to the end of the year, […]

A little while ago I wrote about my sudden insight that most printed fingering in the scores of piano pieces was probably devised by men, and for male pianists. Yesterday I had some follow-up to that from a doctor who had done some further reading about male and female hand sizes. He showed me the […]

Yesterday I was at a concert where, just as I was thinking of reading the programme notes, the lights went down and I couldn’t read them. Some concert halls don’t put the lights down; others dim them slightly, and some put them down to ‘theatre levels’, just leaving enough light for people to find their […]

I’m preparing for my two appearances at the London Piano Festival in King’s Place on Saturday October 5.  At 2pm I have a solo lecture-recital on Schubert’s A major Sonata D959. At 7pm I’ll be joining the other festival pianists in a ‘two-piano marathon‘ concert. Most people think of piano duets as two players sitting […]