To East Bergholt in Suffolk for a concert with the Florestan Trio. The artist John Constable was born in East Bergholt, and used to walk through the fields to school in Dedham. He later said it was that landscape which inspired him to become a painter. Before the rehearsal, Bob and I walked along that [...]

The first concert of the new season for the Florestan Trio is on Tuesday 5 October at 7.30pm at Wigmore Hall, part of the Schumann bicentenary celebrations. What is it about Schumann which makes him such a favourite of musicians? He isn’t always a favourite at the box office; in fact promoters sometimes sigh with disappointment [...]

I’m off to take part in the Florestan Festival at Peasmarsh for the next few days. The festival takes place in a lovely little Norman church in the middle of the East Sussex fields (see photo). This year’s festival, the 13th Florestan Festival, celebrates the work of Robert Schumann whose 200th birthday was on 8th [...]

This month the Florestan Trio’s new disc is out on Hyperion Records. It’s a CD of three marvellous Czech piano trios by Smetana, Martinu and Petr Eben. It was a particularly arduous disc to record because all three works – though particularly the Smetana and Martinu – require a lot of physical stamina. In concert, short [...]

A kind person at International Piano magazine has sent me, without comment, a copy of the May/June issue. It turns out to have a survey of recordings of Haydn’s ‘Gypsy Rondo’ piano trio. ‘The Florestan Trio … displays uncommon musical intelligence while refusing to allow any hint of sentimentality of any over-indulgence in the finale. [...]