The other week I was visiting relatives in the south of England, and we went to the coast for an outing. The beach was covered in stones of attractive pink, white and russet colours, and as usual I found myself searching among the stones for examples of rounded ones. It’s always seemed unlikely to me […]

A couple of readers said they’d like to hear more about Radu Lupu. I only met him a few times and didn’t know him well, but I vividly remember the impression he made. When I went for my lessons, I was probably focusing on trying to play each phrase as beautifully as I could. It […]

On Saturday, I shall be playing Mozart’s last piano concerto  – the B flat major, K595 – with the Meadows Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh. Since I don’t have an in-house orchestra, I have been preparing by playing along with a recording. We have three CDs in the house – two played by Clifford Curzon (different […]

I have got so used to everything being online-only that I was very surprised when an Actual Thing turned up in the post to commemorate the Presto Music Award 2021 for my book The Piano. It’s a nice little sculpture of the blue Presto Music ‘arrows’ logo. I knew about the award before Christmas, I […]

The Financial Times has been publishing its ‘Books of 2021’, category by category across recent days, and now they have arrived at Classical Music. I’m proud to see that my piano book is one of their Books of 2021. This is the link, but unless you’re a subscriber it seems to lead only to a […]