It’s almost like not being in England at all. Surrounded by this sea of colour, it’s as if you’ve wandered into some Mediterranean paradise, or at least onto the set of an exotic opera. And yet the scene is silent. Visitors tend to keep quiet as they take it in.

We found a seat amongst the bushes, fashioned from an old tree stump. A little plaque explained it was there in memory of Wally Miller, head gardener when the azaleas were planted a few decades ago. What a genius!

Isabella Plantation, Richmond Park is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The guidebook said, ‘The architecture style was both functional and devoid of all ornament, such as sculpture, stained glass or illuminated work that might distract the monks from prayer …Like the layout, the architecture is simple and stark. It was not designed to please and its simplicity makes no concessions. Its beauty results from the vigour of the proportions alone, from the harmony of forms, from the perfection of its stonework and the way light falls through the rare openings.’

I was very surprised to read the phrase, ‘it was not designed to please’. To me, nothing could have been more deeply pleasing to look at. Its pure lines, shapes and spaces and the way they related to one another seemed masterly and illuminating, as though the building was carrying on the work of the monks all by itself.

The Abbey of Silvacane is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The clutch of pungent green leaves in this week’s organic veg box was a challenge to our usual cooking routines. After some thought, Bob devised a delicious soufflé flavoured with wild garlic and sorrel, served with purple sprouting broccoli.  It was a symphony in gold and green. Before we sat down to eat it, we agreed that the new dish should be christened Wild Surmise Soufflé. Served with a glass of Chablis, it was a luxurious supper on a spring evening.

Wild Surmise Soufflé is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Dance critics were in raptures about this show, but I still think that Mark Morris’s choreography is a special treat for musicians. It’s not just that his dance steps are wedded to the music – it’s more about his being unusually aware of the structure, emotion, texture and implications of the music, and unusually alive to the visual associations which can arise in a listener’s mind. It was Morris’s inspired take on the Schumann piano quintet which gave that rather hackneyed piece a whole new lease of life for me. Of course, choreography remains theoretical without dancers, and the present MMDG is absolutely superb. They make everything look natural and effortless, though it clearly can’t be. The live music was excellent too.

These days I seem to spend a lot of time getting worked up about people who are incompetent, poorly-trained, or don’t care about the outcome of their work. So it was not only a pleasure, but also a huge relief and a deep satisfaction to see something being done with such beauty and mastery.

Mark Morris at the Coliseum is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Organic inspiration is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Calm before the storm is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Unsmall talk is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’

It’s funny how the first flowers of the year – crocuses, daffodils, aconites -seem especially vivid in colour. Are they really brighter than other flowers, or do they just strike us that way because our eyes have gradually adapted to the long drabness of winter? I found these gorgeous things in the park up the road.

A sudden flash of colour is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

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

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

Cortot

I’m practising Schumann’s wonderful set of piano pieces, Davidsbündlertänze, for a concert later this year. As usual, progress is unpredictable. Sometimes things move on, sometimes not. Feeling short of inspiration one day this week, I sat down to listen to a historic 1937 recording by Alfred Cortot, renowned for his interpretations of Schumann and Chopin.

It had a curious effect. Cortot’s impulsiveness and spontaneity is often inspiring, but he was clearly living at a time when accuracy was not as highly prized as it is now. It’s astonishing to hear how many wrong notes he plays, sometimes whole fistfuls of them when the going gets tough. I found it strangely liberating. Nobody today would willingly leave the recording studio with so many errors faithfully captured on disc, but after I’d got over my surprise, Cortot’s performance reminded me what was important. It conveyed such focus on the line and spirit of the music that his wrong notes seemed (almost) irrelevant. Next time I sat down at the piano, I felt quite light-hearted, and found it easier to think of the big picture.

Listening to Cortot is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

seen round the corner from Henry Wood Hall

A very busy week ended with a concert and party for the Friends of the Florestan Trio. What a nice thing a Friends’ Organisation is! So much of a musician’s time, especially a pianist’s time, is spent working alone or with just a few other people. It’s easy to lose the sense that anyone out there is following your progress, or is even aware of your activities. Concerts, of course, bring you suddenly face to face with large numbers of people, but they are, in effect, strangers, perhaps all hearing and seeing you for the first time.

A Friends’ Organisation is different; its members have signed up precisely because they don’t want to lose touch with you. Last night we had about a hundred Friends gathered together for our annual party. It’s really quite touching to see all these people, many of them experts in fields completely unrelated to music, who have come together for the specific purpose of giving us moral support. The atmosphere in the concert is subtly different; there’s a warmth there right away. And it does really help to feel that there are people out there wondering how you’re getting on as you move about the world.

Moral Support is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

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

time and tide ...

This new year has found me in thoughtful rather than celebratory mood. So here is a photo of the tide gracefully looping its way along Portobello Beach in the winter sun in Edinburgh, where I spent Christmas.

There is much to look forward to in 2010, and I wish you all a good start to the new year.

New Year’s Day is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

He was the founder of the music group Domus, which had its own portable concert hall in the shape of a geodesic dome. Its members met at the International Musicians’ Seminars in Prussia Cove, Cornwall, in the early 1980s. I was the pianist. We wanted to find a way of making music that was less formal and intimidating than we were beginning to experience as young professionals playing in orthodox concert halls. When we started discussing how to create our own more intimate concerts, someone jokingly said that we should build a portable concert hall.

Felix was several steps ahead of us, then as at many other times. As an American school student he had come across Buckminster Fuller’s designs for a geodesic dome, and he declared that if we were to have a portable concert hall, it must be in the shape of a dome. With typical enterprise and energy he set about building us a geodesic dome. It wasn’t the most practical idea, but the beauty of the white dome galvanised lots of young musicians into helping to make it a reality. Some of the story is told in my book ‘Beyond the Notes’, and is too long to tell here. Suffice it to say that Felix was probably the only person in the world who could have got me to run about in the rain carrying heavy boxes full of aluminium tubes. When things got tough, as they soon did, he rallied us all with his heartfelt cry of, ‘It must never not be fun!!’

Felix had an amazing gift for dreaming up idealistic projects and, even more, for inspiring people to join him in bringing them to fruition. He did it with Domus, and later, when he had returned to America, he did it again with the Church of Beethoven, a concert series he founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ironically, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about it on the day that Felix died, though I don’t think the writer can have been aware of the sad coincidence.

When I knew Felix in the ’80s we didn’t use the word ‘animateur’, but I think that’s what he was – an animateur of genius. He made people want to be in his gang. His love of music, combined with his love of fun, adventure, and the perfect cappuccino made him a magnet for other people throughout his life.

Felix Wurman – in memoriam is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

King's College Chapel yesterday

Yesterday I was in King’s College, Cambridge to hear the ‘Carols from King’s’ service, which will be broadcast on Christmas Eve on BBC2. When I was a student at the college, the choir sang Evensong every day and I missed most of the services, telling myself that I could go any time I liked. Now that I can’t go any time I like, it seems a huge luxury to sit there in the winter darkness and listen to sacred choral music, beautifully sung, for a couple of hours. The Chapel, whose resonant acoustic can obliterate certain kinds of instrumental music, is a perfect setting for the choir. At the end of each piece, the great building seems to go on caressing the memory of their voices for seconds, reluctant to let go.

The choir is composed of men (students of the college) and boys (pupils at the nearby choir school). It never ceases to amaze me that some of little choristers, who look as if they might be more at home in the tuck shop or on the rugby field, can open their mouths and utter divine streams of melody, looking angelic as they do so. And I’m convinced that their radiance when they sing is not an illusion. Music shows a side of them which must take some of their loved ones aback.

Mediaeval carols have always been my favourite. But, as at last year’s Carol Service, it was a modern setting which I found especially haunting. Last year I loved a motet by James MacMillan. This year it was American composer Morten Lauridsen’s setting of ‘O magnum mysterium’. One of the readers said afterwards that she was glad she hadn’t had to speak directly after that particular piece, because it was very affecting.

O magnum mysterium is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The whole cast was splendid, but the musical talent and sheer gusto of the two main characters was memorable. I confess that Julian Ovenden was new to me, but what a star! And the sight of Jane Horrocks going almost cross-eyed with communicative effort will stay with me for a long time. There’s something very special about the way she goes a step further than is strictly necessary for the characterisation of the part. It seems to take her performance into unexpected dimensions. Sometimes, even in moments where she isn’t saying or doing anything, you can see her positively vibrating, like a tuning-fork which has just been struck.

A joyful ‘Annie’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

To celebrate, here’s a sweet story I heard from Mark Morris when I attended his question-and-answer session the other night at Sadler’s Wells.

He was complaining about someone sitting in the balcony at one of his shows last week who couldn’t resist texting her friends on her mobile phone throughout the evening. Her phone kept lighting up in the dark, and her large earrings jangled as she tossed her hair. Lots of people were annoyed, including him, and he wasn’t even in the balcony.

We moved on to other topics. About ten minutes later, someone said that Morris’s work struck her, in a good way, as ‘childish’. Quick as a flash he said, ‘Childlike, not child-ish. Childish is jangly earrings and texting.’

He went on to say that it amazes him how theatre audiences put up with inconsiderate behaviour that would never be tolerated at a concert, particularly a chamber music concert or recital. A while ago in New York, he told us, he attended a solo piano recital by the great Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini. The whole audience was listening in rapt silence. At one point, Mark Morris ‘crossed his corduroyed legs’, as he put it, causing the tiniest susurration of soft fabric against soft fabric, and about 20 people whirled round with one accord and glared at him.

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

at Sadler's Wells last night

Even in the dark and without his lipstick-pink pashmina, I recognised choreographer Mark Morris standing chatting with two friends outside Sadler’s Wells Theatre an hour before his show last night. It wasn’t like bumping into Diaghilev: Morris was dressed in old corduroys and a shapeless black t-shirt. I thought it might be his “please don’t recognise me” outfit, but he was still wearing it two hours later when he took the stage for a question-and-answer session with about a thousand of us besotted fans.

When I saw him in the street I knew I might never have the chance again, so I barged in and stammeringly tried to tell him how much I admire his work. I told him I was a musician and loved the way his dance was entirely based on, derived from and inspired by the music – not just its outward rhythm and structure, but its emotional and psychological meaning too. ‘You’re the only modern choreographer I’ve seen who really understands music!’, I babbled. He smiled and said, ‘Well, the only one who understands it in a way that you agree with!’ I pressed on: ‘But surely dance should be a response to music, not something separate from it?’  He looked more serious and said, ‘Well, yes. I agree. I’m old-fashioned that way.’ Old-fashioned? Timeless, I’d say.

Meeting one of my heroes is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Because my dad was a keen amateur ballroom dancer, I’ve always made a point of following dance programmes, even in a shamelessly theatrical format like the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. It’s fun and instructive to see amateurs paired with silkily expert professional dancers, and to see the amateurs improve week by week through sheer hard work. Even the glitzy format and the jokey commentary can’t disguise the real effort behind each couple’s performance.

Against this background, the guest appearance on Saturday of Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, the World Latin Dance Champions, was startling and bracing. It was like being suddenly whisked to the top of an Alp after pottering about on the lower slopes. Even I could see that theirs is an order of virtuosic precision, speed and rhythmic brilliance far beyond the usual range. It suddenly opened my eyes to what more could be done in the Latin dance genre. It was as if a master violinist had wandered into a school concert and performed a flawless Paganini Caprice, leaving everyone slightly breathless.

Dancing at altitude is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog