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 […]

Two more reviews of my book ‘Out of Silence’ have appeared. As neither is online, here’s a glimpse of what they said: ‘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, […]

An exciting moment this afternoon: a friend called to say that he’d just read a review – the first one, in fact – of my new book in the Times Literary Supplement. I couldn’t find it online, so I ran down the road to the newsagent’s to buy a hard copy. Here’s a snippet of John […]

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. […]

On Saturday we attended the last night of Mark Morris Dance Group performing ‘L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato’ at the Coliseum. Readers will remember that Mark Morris is a hero of mine. Dance critics were in raptures about this show, but I still think that Mark Morris’s choreography is a special treat for musicians. […]