Winter weather has suddenly arrived in London. There is ice on the smaller ponds frost on the bushes, and low winter sunshine striking dramatically through the trees. This week Erich Hoebarth and I – me in London and him in Vienna – are trying to go through all the ‘live’ recordings that were made of [...]

Erich Höbarth and I are travelling down to Bath today to prepare for our concert in the Mozartfest on Saturday morning. Our programme is all of Mozart, interspersing duo sonatas with piano solos, but it’s a different programme to the all-Mozart one we played in the Wigmore Hall in September. Of course, with several dozen [...]

In a second-hand bookstore last week I came across the cello part of Beethoven’s late string quartets. Just the cello part – the other parts were missing. It was cheap, and I bought it out of curiosity. Looking through it when I got home, I was struck by how impossible it is to guess, from [...]

I have been coaching on the Marryat Chamber Music autumn course, which ended last night with a wonderful concert (see photo). I find it immensely cheering that such talented, accomplished young musicians obviously love chamber music so much and are determined to make it a major part of their lives. The four participating groups between [...]

On my last evening in Prussia Cove, I was asked to say a few words after supper about the guiding ethos of the place as envisaged by violinist Sandor Vegh, who started the International Musicians’ Seminars forty years ago. I stood up in the dining room by candlelight and reminisced about some of the things [...]