Independent review of new music books is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

another oldie

Richard Osborne devotes a large part of his Music column in ‘The Oldie’ magazine (Summer 2010) to my new book. As I don’t have a picture of the magazine I’ve chosen instead an illustration of an real oldie, one of the 700-year-old oaks in Richmond Park.

Richard Osborne writes in The Oldie: ‘Pianist and five-star essayist Susan Tomes … The twelve months [of Out of Silence] deliver twelve chapters each containing nine or ten short essays. Some are prompted by a concert or an event; others are simply serendipity, such as the delightful ‘In Praise of Idleness’, inspired by a Bertrand Russell volume discovered in a charity shop. For a parent with a musically gifted child the collection is essential reading.’

The Oldie magazine review is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘In my experience, highly gifted musicians often find it extremely difficult to articulate their ideas about music and reveal the secrets of their craft through writing. Not so Susan Tomes. Her latest book, ‘Out of Silence’, is packed full of fascinating material reflecting upon the difficult and sometimes intangible issues that face a busy professional pianist…Yet the approach here is anything but self-centred, as can so often be the case with autobiographical material. Rather, what emerges from these pages is Tomes’s strong sense of humility, her quirky humour, and above all her tremendous love and driving enthusiasm for her work. … a compelling read.’

BBC Music magazine, July 2010

‘A glorious collection of essays. ..After ‘Beyond the Notes’ and ‘A Musician’s Alphabet’, with this third volume Susan Tomes joins that small band of musicians whose literary skill runs parallel to their musical talent. All of them are male, most are pianists: Glenn Gould, Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim and Stephen Hough, for example…

Tomes’s work reminds me of JB Priestly’s life-affirming collection of essays, ‘Delight’. I can offer no higher praise.… Tomes extracts on almost every page a life lesson for the rest of us, whether or not we are musicians.’

Editor’s Choice for July 2010, Classic FM magazine

More book reviews is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘Tomes has a particular understanding of humanity rare in writing about music. She has indeed looked ‘beyond the notes’ and seen how the world perceives musicians.’

Click here if you’d like to read the whole review on the  ‘Out of Silence’ section of the Book Reviews page.

TLS review of ‘Out of Silence’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Finishing his survey with a summary of his favourite five recordings, the reviewer recommends ‘the Florestan Trio ‘for the marriage of intelligence and athleticism in its performance…  and they take authenticity to the extent of having a young lady pianist.’ Poetic licence in that adjective, I’m afraid, Mr Threasher, but thank you!

Haydn’s Gypsy Rondo trio 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

Diapason magazine 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

Of course opera and symphony orchestras are large-scale, colourful and well-supported forms of music, and there was plenty to write about, most notably – as Tom said – the heartwarming appearances here of Dudamel with his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.

But what about chamber music, music of equal quality and interest? Solo instrumentalists were not mentioned in the summary either, by the way, though in general such individuals are not lacking in praise or attention. But chamber music, a more intimate kind of music, is often ignored despite the fact that it often elicits performances of memorable artistry from its exponents, many of whom keep going against the odds, and with no public funding.

In the past week The Guardian has published similar reviews of the decade in theatre, film, dance, TV, comedy and art. Experts in those other fields often mentioned performances by small groups. Dance and theatre have both had small-scale shows which have been critical and popular successes. In TV, the ‘small ensemble cast’ continues to be beloved. And in comedy, the one-man stand-up show is currently the highest-profile route a comic can take. Not so in classical music, alas, where the achievements of  small groups – and the remarkable increase in the number of good young string quartets in this country – were passed over entirely.  Yet this is supposed to be the age of Small is Beautiful – and I believe that applies to classical music just as much as to other art-forms.

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

‘The Florestan Trio display their customary virtuosity, elegance and caprice, once again capturing the full emotional range of what may, on the surface, appear to be merely domestic entertainment music… Peter Quantrill has already chosen this disc as a highlight of the past year (in the issue of December 09) and I can do little better than echo his description of it as ‘a disc of good, serious fun’.’

Gramophone, Jan 2010

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

Trumpet, my own, blowing is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘I can’t remember a disc of more good, serious fun than the envoi to Haydn Year from the Florestan Trio… Not a phrase is left to chance. It’s a disc full of bushes and briars, and the cold fresh wind of sense on a sunny winter morning.’  We’re slightly perplexed by the reference to bushes and briars, but we’re also mysteriously pleased by the image.

Bushes and briars is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

the tiny Orange Tree Theatre

It’s a double-edged feeling when you come across something superb by someone you’ve never heard of. Happy to discover them, but sad that they seem to have fallen through the net of history. That’s how we felt on seeing ‘Alison’s House’, by the American playwright Susan Glaspell, at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. We’d never heard of Glaspell, yet it turned out that she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for this play. In the Orange Tree production there was another surprise, the debut of a very fine actress named Gráinne Keenan, of whom I’m certain we will hear much more.

‘Alison’s House’ is based on the life of American poet Emily Dickinson, with ‘Alison’ representing Emily. The play is set 18 years after ‘Alison’s’ death, and on the last day of the year 1899. During the course of the action, Alison’s family discovers a collection of unpublished poems revealing her love for a man she never married. Only a couple of older people in the family knew of the affair, and they had taken pains to keep it quiet. They’re aghast at the thought that the newly discovered poems might ever become public. But time has moved on, younger members of the family are of an age to take an interest, and their views are different. They believe that the poet’s work belongs not to the family, but ‘to the world’. A fight develops between the older and younger generation, with the younger winning as midnight strikes and a new century begins.

There are lots of parallel examples from the world of music – such as music being suppressed after the composer’s death  by those who believe it wasn’t their best work. Clara Schumann prevented some of Robert Schumann’s late work from seeing the light of day because she believed it was unfair to him to publish anything which demonstrated his mental illness. We talked of such issues for a long time afterwards. Do loved ones have a right to say? When should the world’s judgement be allowed to override the family’s?

‘Alison’s House’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘Haydn would doubtless have thought well of Susan Tomes’s quick wit and dexterity …. This is all brilliant ensemble playing by thoughtful and enthusiastic as well as skilful performers.’

First review of the trio’s new CD is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

A few years ago, a musician could not quote a web review in any official capacity because web reviews were not considered ‘bona fide’. However, things are changing, and of course they’re likely to change further as the print editions of newspapers surrender to the huge appetite for internet news. Recently someone at The Guardian remarked to me that it’s almost a misnomer to call it ‘a newspaper’ first and foremost, because the web audience is so much bigger than the print audience, and far more international. Of course the news usually breaks on the website first. Sometimes, when there isn’t space for many arts reviews in the print edition, extra reviews are published on the newspaper’s website. So I think it won’t be for much longer that promoters and embassies and visa issuers can insist on being sent only hard copies of published reviews.

Other forms of arts and leisure activities have already developed extensive ‘user reviews’ which must be far more widely consulted than official guidebooks. If I want to go out for dinner, I look at a customer review site like London Eating to see what recent diners have said about the restaurant. Similarly with hotels: I consult a site like TripAdvisor and am happy to be guided by other visitors, particularly if they happen to mention the kind of things that are important to me. One great advantage of such customer review websites is that they can be far more up-to-date than a book which was handed in to the editor a year before it was printed, and has been on the shelves for another six months since then. Naturally the author cannot know that in the interim, the chef has resigned and the drains have begun to smell, but yesterday’s customer knows.

My guess is that many new kinds of music review sites will come to be taken seriously, not only the ones attached to prestigious newspapers. Of course a newspaper can only support a tiny number of critics, far fewer than the number of well-informed enthusiasts who have something to say but nowhere to say it. Now that it’s so easy to type in to the search box, for example, ‘Florestan Trio Schubert’ and be presented with a whole range of responses, readers will gradually notice where insightful writing is to be found.

Where are the best reviews? is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog