‘In this second of the series, the supreme level of partnership was maintained, and the plus was that the works were even better…. Hearing this partnership, you could believe that no-one could play these works better, ‘ wrote Ian Stuart-Hunter in the Perthshire Advertiser.

The photo shows Erich and me at the end of our rehearsal.

Perth Advertiser review is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

A year later, however, people in Cambridge were out in their shirt-sleeves in intense November sunshine. Lots of people were still punting on the river (see photo). The light was particularly beautiful, and I annoyed everyone by stopping to try and capture one poetical scene after another. By the time we got back to London, however, mist had descended; we emerged from the tube into dark wintry wetness which made the Cambridge sunshine seem very far away.

There has been a lot of talk about another harsh winter, but we have a young friend who works in weather forecasting, and he told us that it is impossible to predict the weather accurately more than a few days ahead. Anything else is pure guesswork.

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

We went for coffee in an outstandingly beautiful lounge reserved for Fellows of the College. Several older gentlemen were reading or working quietly on laptops. My companion pointed out several of them, names known to me from the world of politics and literature. So as not to disturb them, we took our coffee to an adjoining room where I was startled to see some famous paintings on the walls.  Although I was only there for a short time, I could feel myself starting to relax and enter an enjoyable trance-like state. Imagine the quality of work one could do there! How different life would be if you had access to such a place whenever you wanted it! Alas, all too soon it was time to tear myself away and do some teaching, but I cherished the image of those peaceful rooms for the rest of the day.

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

Everyone who knows the film ‘Amadeus’ will remember the scene in which Mozart’s body is carted off in dreadful winter weather, to be thrown into a common grave outside the city, with no family members present. Strange as it may seem, that was not unusual at the time. The emperor had forbidden the use of new coffins because of a shortage of wood, and he had passed a law that bodies were to be buried in linen shrouds to speed decomposition. Mourners often did not follow the cortege beyond the city walls.

Mozart’s wife Konstanze apparently did not try to find out exactly where he had been buried until almost half a century later, by which time there was a great deal of interest in Mozart’s life. As an old lady herself, Konstanze went for the first time to Sankt Marx to consult the archivists, but so long after the event they could only say that such-and-such an area of the graveyard was in use for common graves in 1791. Now there is a small, rather unlovely monument with Mozart’s name on it (see picture) and even ‘a grave’ marked out in flowers, which must mislead many people into thinking that his body lies exactly there. It probably lies somewhere beneath the lawn, but nobody knows where. Today there is nothing to explain that ‘Mozart’s grave’ is just a well-meaning municipal attempt to supply visitors with a focal point.

‘Mozart’s grave’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I was repeatedly struck by the fact that their selection was never the same as the jury’s. It’s probably simplistic to say so, but I often felt the public’s approval tended to fall on groups with a very showy platform manner, groups who had taken great trouble over their appearance, or groups which happened to feature a particularly good-looking person. The jury was not immune to those factors, naturally, but they came lower down our list of priorities. Maybe I just happened upon an un-representative selection of audience members, but I became conscious of their disappointment when certain groups didn’t do as well as they had expected. There was no forum in which the jury could explain what they were listening for and why – the audience just had to accept our decisions, as the competitors did. But I was a little sad that we and the audience didn’t always see eye to eye on those decisions. For one thing, I’d like to think that the jury is identifying a new generation of musicians whom the public will love and appreciate.

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

Fresh salmon tends to be on the menu of most other meals here as well, so we have almost overdosed on salmon in its various guises. It seems that this is a well-known problem historically. One of my Norwegian colleagues was telling me that in the old days in some parts of Norway, labourers would often have it written into their contracts that they were not to be fed salmon more than four times a week.

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

My favourite poster uses the title of a Brett Dean composition, ‘Twelve Angry Men’, inspired by the Hollywood film of that name about a conscientious jury. In an inspired stroke Dean has tranposed the twelve angry men into a phalanx of cellists. The poster says (in Norwegian), ’Chamber Music is Twelve Angry Men’. 

On the side of my hotel is a huge version of this particular poster (see photo). Musicians see it every time they cross the bridge, and their comments are wry. Twelve angry men? ‘That would be three string quartets, then.’

‘12 angry men’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Whenever I go to an instrumental concert in Italy, however, I’m puzzled by the audience’s indifferent response to the performers. They seem to applaud with the same polite warmth whether the performance is good or not. An outburst of virtuosity is received in exctly the same way as something very ordinary. Listening to the clapping with a musician’s ear, I can tell that it isn’t thoroughly engaged – as though the charm of the setting, the melodies floating into the velvet blue of the sky, and the lights on the golden stonework have lulled the audience into a pleasant state of dreamy half-attention. As a performer myself I’ve found this frustrating, especially when I know how worked up an Italian audience can get in the opera house, cheering and booing with fervent participation. Perhaps purely instrumental music has never meant as much to them?

Instrumental music in Italy is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

After lunch, we went to see some of the extraordinary rock formations of the Sidobre forests, which are littered with vast ancient boulders. Some of them, by accidents of nature, have landed in amazing places, balanced so improbably that your heart is in your mouth as you walk underneath. The rock in the photo has the Occitan name of Peyro Clabado, or ‘stuck rock’, referring to the huge rock on top wedged incredibly on its base by a little rock supplied thousands of years ago by Chance. It looked like a gigantic Henry Moore sculpture. And so did many of the other boulders on the forest floor. It seemed to us that the locals had missed a trick in not naming more of them. Everyone was beating a path to the famous rocks, such as ‘The Goose’ or ‘The Three Cheeses’, but we saw plenty of unvisited rocks equally deserving of nicknames. The Whale, The Hot Cross Bun, The Sea Lion, The Mushroom. Did I say they looked like Henry Moores? Maybe it was more that I saw the origins of his sculptures in these shapely old boulders.

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

A mediaeval timbered house was composed of garlic bulbs and stalks, with pink cloves for roof tiles. An aeroplane made of garlic stalks had pink-clove-shaped passengers peeping out of the windows. A deep sea scene featured fish and crustaceans of garlic. In my favourite tableau, a rugby stadium had been recreated. The base of garlic cloves were the floodlights, garlic stalks were the goalposts, and the stadium terraces were packed with fat pink garlic cloves, looking surprisingly plausible as sports fans. My favourite thing about the exhibition was that visitors went round in respectful silence and with completely straight faces, as though there were nothing in the least amusing about an octopus made of garlic.

The region seemed to lack its local Damien Hirst. Nobody had thought to slice a garlic clove vertically and to display its cruelly separated halves suspended in a tank of formaldehyde.

Garlic as artistic medium is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I was tired and didn’t make it much past midnight, but some of the participants stayed up longer, chatting in the courtyard by the bar. In the middle of the night I awoke to hear the distant strains of ‘God Save the Queen’, sung by an impromptu choir of pianists, floating on the night air. It was pleasingly like that moment at the end of Debussy’s piano prelude ‘Feux d’Artifice’, when the music dies away and you hear fragments of La Marseillaise, marked ‘distantly’.

Life imitates Debussy is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

When we compared notes it transpired that, as usual, the grass is greener on the other side of the street. Some who pursued music against all the odds now found themselves looking with yearning at the lives of those who had become architects or doctors. The doctors, in turn, yearned to immerse themselves instead in the search for artistic beauty and truth, and thought the musicians were lucky to be able to spend hours in contemplation of the right tempo and expression for this or that. Yet the architects and doctors were also happy they hadn’t had their feelings about music spoiled by the need to earn money from it. I have had this discussion hundreds of times without ever coming to any enduring conclusions.

Choosing to be a musician is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

What I like about this group of students is that most of them do something completely different for their day jobs. Just a few are full-time music students, but others are doctors, lawyers, journalists, psychiatrists, editors, and there’s even an aerospace engineer. I’m so used to being surrounded by people whose main occupation is music that I find it very refreshing to be in the company of people who are experts in other things, but have kept piano-playing as a hobby which means a great deal to them. In some ways I find I envy them!

‘Pianistes’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I asked my string-playing friends from mainland Europe whether they prefer playing with a higher A? They all said no, adding wistfully that their instruments resonate more freely and sound better with a lower A. So what’s driving the inexorable rise in pitch? In psycho-acoustical terms, there seems to be a feeling that playing sharp adds brilliance to the tone. My friends said that in orchestras they notice that when the wind players are playing a little sharp, the string players discreetly tune up to match them, and so the whole vicious circle goes on. Amongst orchestral players there’s a rueful saying, ‘Better sharp than out of tune’. We agreed that the constant rise in pitch is mysterious, given that no-one appears to be pushing for it, and moreover that it doesn’t seem to benefit anyone, certainly not the lovely old instruments built when an even gentler A was in use.

‘Better sharp than out of tune’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I was playing the piano at the back of the ensemble and was turned at right angles to the audience, so I couldn’t see them, but suddenly I heard what sounded like an angelic choir singing along with ‘Simple Gifts’, perfectly in tune. I turned to my right to see all the children unselfconsciously singing along with us, their little faces seriously raised towards the stage. It was a most beautiful effect, a choir of young children suddenly added to the instrumental ensemble, and I must say I had tears in my eyes. Had Copland been in the church he might have wanted to rewrite the piece and add a choir of children to his original score. But of course what made it particularly sweet this morning was that their contribution was spontaneous, unrepeatable.

Children’s voices is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Rehearsals in the church are open to the public, and there have been people listening to every rehearsal so far, sometimes sitting in the church until late into the evening to catch all the pieces being worked on. Tonight is the first of seven concerts, and from now until Sunday evening we cover an enormous range of repertoire, from Mozart and Beethoven through Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky to Dohnanyi, Copland and Barber. One of the things I like is that this is not a specialist audience, nor has this village thrown its allegiance behind classical music, but everyone is willing to give our concerts a go, and having done so, they generally return time after time. This means that we see the same people in the audience year after year, a reunion I particularly look forward to.

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

I spent a pleasant afternoon sitting by the river, watching punts go by. In my student days, most of the punters were students or tourists. Now most punts seem to be steered by professionals who give guided history tours as they glide along ‘The Backs’ of the colleges with their boatloads of foreign visitors. I was startled to hear some of the guides gaily dispensing misinformation. As they glided past, I heard them say that King’s was the only college where students do not have to take exams (untrue); that only students with top exam marks are allowed to live in the building nearest to the river (untrue); that the founder, Henry VI, was married to Anne Boleyn (untrue), that you can be expelled for walking on the lawn (untrue) and even that the famous Chapel was hewn out of a single piece of rock (untrue). The tourists took it all in, nodding solemnly. If they happened to catch my eye, I did my bit for counter-information by smiling and shaking my head meaningfully, but my companions told me to stop. ‘You can’t single-handedly stamp this out – it goes on day and night’, they said wearily.

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

The scene reminded me of the character Slartibartfast in Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. Slartibartfast was a planetary coastline designer who had won awards for his design of the coastline of Norway. This little glimpse of the coastline shows that the award was well deserved.

The award-winning coastline of Norway is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

the beach at Ramberg, Lofoten Islands

I probably would never have gone to the Lofoten Islands of Norway on my own initiative, but I was very glad that a music festival had summoned me there last week. Somehow I had imagined the islands as smaller and tamer than they really are. In fact, the scenery was quite wonderful. On our drives from one island to another (luckily these days several of them are connected by road bridges) I sat in the back of the car with my mouth permanently open at the sight of majestic chains of snow-covered mountains. One could hardly imagine anything lovelier than those mountains touched by the setting sun.

One of our most remote concert locations was at Ramberg, where on the beach in the photo I saw the Northern Lights. In the summer, Ramberg is well known as a place from which to view the midnight sun. In the winter, it felt wild and desolate. In the centre of the photo you can see the little red cabins where the musicians stayed. Our concert in the local restaurant was a surprisingly jolly affair, expertly compered by Norway’s most cherished violinist, Arve Tellefsen.

The majestic scenery of the Lofoten Islands is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

In dealing with the organisers, who actually live on the islands, I’ve been struck by their high level of promptness and efficiency. Whenever I ask a question, they ping right back with the answer, even outside of office hours and on weekends. I’ve now dealt with administrators, hotel owners, and local journalists. All have been models of competence and friendliness. It’s all so different from my usual experience of dealing with big festivals, and makes me realise once more that small is beautiful.

Inside the Arctic Circle is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog