In the course of these multi-stage journeys, making my way back to one little house in one little street in a big city, I often wish that my house would appear magically in front of me at the moment when I realise I’m tired and need to rest. I could, of course, stay in a hotel, but that’s no substitute for being at home. Nevertheless it sometimes feels strange that ‘going home’ is such an intricate procedure, and that there is no point in knocking on any other pleasant-looking door along the way and calling, ‘I’m back!’

Lucky old snails is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I knew that Mendelssohn revised his original draft after hearing criticisms of the piano writing from his composer friend Ferdinand Hiller. But in fact the original draft was different in a great many respects, not just that of the piano writing. I spent an interesting morning comparing the two versions. In almost every case it seemed to me that Mendelssohn’s later ideas were better and more subtle, though in the first draft there were several passages where he had embarked on an intriguing harmonic drift, later abandoned. In particular, some of his ‘genius ideas’ from the later version, such as the unforgettable way he brings back the opening theme in the recapitulation of the first movement with a soaring violin descant above it – a descant which becomes the second theme of the slow movement – were not there at all in his first draft. Thank heavens he had second thoughts!

As Dr Reiser said, the first draft is notable partly because we tend to think of Mendelssohn as an unusually lucky person who just sat down in his elegant frock coat and let works of divine inspiration roll effortlessly from his pen. This early version of his famous D minor Trio proves that however easy or fluent the final result may look, there was (as usual) honest toil going on behind the scenes.

Not effortless after all is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Then we were told to leave via the fire doors and the fire escapes. It turned out that there was a serious power cut. We congregated in the courtyard (see photo) awaiting further news. Some people had left their coats and bags in the cloakroom, and were shivering in the cold. Eventually we were told that the building would remain closed for the foreseeable future. At this, the poor coatless and bagless fraternity started quivering with anger as well as cold. We’d kept our coats on, and so we were able to leave …. but without having seen the late Van Gogh paintings we were so looking forward to.

Lights Out is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

But when I look at next season’s programmes, I notice disturbing signs of a policy change. Almost half the concerts follow the format of ‘Celebrity + unnamed others’. The only ‘dedicated’ groups are string quartets. Otherwise:

‘Daniel Hope and musicians’.
‘Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen’ (with a photo of Julia Fischer only).
‘Tetzlaff String Quartet’ (with a photo of Christian Tetzlaff only).
‘Simon Rattle and members of Berliner Philharmoniker’.
‘Mitsuko Uchida and soloists of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’.
‘Mark Padmore and friends’.
‘Lang Lang, Vadim Repin and Mischa Maisky. Programme to be announced.’

This last – illustrated with a dramatic photo of Lang Lang - is the most disturbing for me as a member of a long-standing piano trio. I have enormous admiration for all that Lang Lang has done to spark worldwide interest in the piano, but how confident can one feel in a trio programme offered by three busy soloists who haven’t even decided what to play? Theirs is the only trio in the series.

Of course spur-of-the-moment collaborations can be exciting, and there’s definitely a place for them in festivals and so on, but do they belong in a major chamber music season? When we started the Florestan Trio – which has always had the same members – we were determined to prove that we were serious about being a trio. Now it seems that an ad hoc collection of soloists, or ‘a celebrity’ plus some anonymous collaborators, qualifies for inclusion in a prestigious series of chamber music. I can’t even imagine a situation in which it would be OK for the Florestan Trio to advertise its concerts with a photo of one person only.

An equal music? is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

In a hopeful spirit we went back to the tube station where they told us that the trains were ‘running again’. So, back down to the platform, which was crowded with frustrated travellers. People around us were complaining that they’d already missed part of the event they were going to. No trains appeared. We looked at our watches and realised that by now, even if we made it to our destination (another hour’s journey), we would have missed the entire concert. Then an announcer said there were no trains after all, and that we should all continue our journey ‘at street level’. We gave up, went home on the bus in the rain, and felt agitated for the rest of the evening.

As it happened, the concert we missed was for an invited audience. But what if we had bought expensive tickets? We would have missed the event and wasted the money as well – as must have happened to many of our fellow travellers that evening. What chance is there of London Transport curing its problems by the time London hosts the Olympics in 2012?

City frustration is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

deer grazing beside the Royal Ballet School

At this time of year in Richmond Park, I shudder when I see official notices warning visitors about the deer cull. The park is closed at certain times while its resident population of deer is ‘reduced’. It’s always a treat to see the park’s different herds of deer, some pale and dappled, others a darker brown, but all so beautifully camouflaged that you sometimes don’t notice them until you’re quite close by. You can almost stumble on them in the bracken.  

I worry about what’s going to happen to the deer, and how weird it is that I know about it and they don’t. I’ve read that the deer population rises too quickly in the protected setting of the park, where there are no predators; also, many of the deer are infected with a bacterium that can spread, via ticks, to humans and cause Lyme Disease. But it seems unfair that we should have the power to ‘cull’ these healthy, graceful animals who are such a welcome sight in the city. What if the deer took it into their heads that our numbers were growing too rapidly within the park, and that they must take action to keep things in proportion?  ‘Deer are wild animals’, says the notice. ’Their behaviour is unpredictable and they can move with great strength and speed.’

Reducing numbers is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The book was motivated by some of the questions which people ask after concerts, questions which imply that they imagine musicians taking brief sabbaticals from the Elysian Fields to come and sprinkle lovely music about like icing sugar, before skipping back to lie on a cloud and snooze. I’m still taken aback when people say things like, ‘Presumably, with your pianist’s hands, you never do the washing-up?’ I wanted the book to show something of how the real world and the artistic world interweave – for me at least.

Visiting from the Elysian Fields is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Cortot

I’m practising Schumann’s wonderful set of piano pieces, Davidsbündlertänze, for a concert later this year. As usual, progress is unpredictable. Sometimes things move on, sometimes not. Feeling short of inspiration one day this week, I sat down to listen to a historic 1937 recording by Alfred Cortot, renowned for his interpretations of Schumann and Chopin.

It had a curious effect. Cortot’s impulsiveness and spontaneity is often inspiring, but he was clearly living at a time when accuracy was not as highly prized as it is now. It’s astonishing to hear how many wrong notes he plays, sometimes whole fistfuls of them when the going gets tough. I found it strangely liberating. Nobody today would willingly leave the recording studio with so many errors faithfully captured on disc, but after I’d got over my surprise, Cortot’s performance reminded me what was important. It conveyed such focus on the line and spirit of the music that his wrong notes seemed (almost) irrelevant. Next time I sat down at the piano, I felt quite light-hearted, and found it easier to think of the big picture.

Listening to Cortot is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

When I watch people like them I feel that nature has set up their nervous systems in a different way to mine. Obviously their physical skill is immense, but it’s not just their skill that makes them different. To be able to stay playfully in control at very high speeds must require a co-operative nervous system and a high tolerance of adrenalin. No amount of training on the ski slopes would ever turn me into an ecstatic downhill racer (all right, stop smiling), because travelling at high speed just makes me feel afraid. Big dippers at the funfair are my idea of hell. When I tried learning to ski I was held back by my fear of falling and injuring my hands. I can marvel at Shaun or Lindsey as they hurtle down the track, but I know I’m seeing someone with a different nervous set-up.

Olympian calm is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

‘The Cello Suites’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

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

not too cold for some

The winter sun was striking low over the lake as I raised my tiny idiot-proof camera to take a picture of a terrier plunging into the icy water. (I mean that my camera is tiny and idiot-proof, not that it’s proof against tiny idiots, though of course that would be a useful specialist feature.)

A deep voice at my side said smugly, ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to point into the sun like that with the camera you have there.’ I turned to see a man carrying a camera about the size of a microwave oven. He proceeded to show me that with his superior camera he could do this, that and the other which would enable him – unlike me – to take a photograph facing straight into the winter sun. He was wearing a big show-off hat, so I ignored his advice. Always distrust a photographer in a big hat, I say.

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

Study of ancient writing is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Snowdrops in the snow is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

New book extract is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

discussing Brahms with Omri Epstein and Sebastiaan van Halsema

A moment during my weekend of masterclasses, which finished last night with a delightful concert by the participants. It was a most enjoyable experience to work so intensively with six young professional pianists, and two fine young string players, violinist Sulki Yu and cellist Sebastiaan van Halsema, who had volunteered to be my ‘resident artists’ for the weekend, playing whatever duo and trio repertoire the six pianists wanted to work on. None of the participants had the opportunity to rehearse with one another beforehand, so the first time they played together was in front of the masterclass audience. I wasn’t sure how this formula would work – I’ve only ever seen it done the other way round, with a pianist as the ‘resident’ – but because they were all experienced musicians, because of the constructive attitude of our two resident string players, and because everyone entered into the spirit of the project, the result exceeded my expectations.

Masterclass weekend is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

It seems crazy that as we live longer, we also persist in discriminating against older people. Yet there’s also a longing for authoritative voices, which often come from older people. I for one much prefer an older newsreader, particularly a woman, because of their quality of empathy. I feel that with their life experience they understand the import of the news much better, and you can hear it in the way they deliver it.

Some years ago I was on a plane which ran into turbulence, and some of the passengers, including me, felt sick. I looked around at the cabin crew to see whom I might call for assistance. There was only one older crew member, a calm and comfortable-looking middle-aged woman, and I had no doubt that it was her I would want to help me. I feel sure that many other passengers were thinking the same thing. It crossed my mind then that airlines would do well to recruit more mature, sympathetic-looking people like her.

Voice of experience is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

György Sebök

I’m starting to look forward to my piano masterclasses this weekend. Six young professional pianists are going to be my students. I’ve always hesitated to say ‘students’ ever since a friend came to listen to the masterclasses at Prussia Cove and commented afterwards that the discussion between ‘master’ and ‘student’ had seemed to him more like an exchange of views between colleagues, one of whom happened to be further down the road of experience than the others were.

Last week I was sent some reminiscences of the Hungarian piano professor György Sebök by his former students, who included me. The occasion for our reminiscing was the tenth anniversary of Sebök’s death. Now here was someone whose masterclasses were really not a discussion between equals. He definitely knew more than we did. But perhaps even he didn’t thoroughly know how he knew. One of his students recalled plucking up the courage to tell Sebök that he often didn’t understand his remarks until a long time later. Sebok rather surprisingly replied that he often didn’t understand his remarks himself at the moment that he made them. They came out of some deeper instinct.

A discussion between equals? is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

glowing marmalades

Bob has just made his fourth batch of marmalade this month, using Seville oranges which are only available in January. Batch 1 had to be thrown away when he got engrossed in some editing work and left the boiling marmalade to caramelise. Batch 2 was an unusual recipe with dark muscovado sugar, not a marmalade for all seasons. Batch 3 was a laborious ‘fine peel’ marmalade which involved hours of paring the pith carefully away from the rind of kilos of oranges, and then cutting the rinds into vermicelli with the point of our sharpest knife. The resulting marmalade was pronounced ‘boring’. Batch 4, his masterpiece and probably the final batch of this year, reverts to a ‘traditional’ recipe of white sugar, more of the pith, and chunkier peel. I shall be sad when the kitchen stops being an aromatic laboratory of preserves.

Bob’s preserve(s) is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

the cormorant (we think)

The parade of unusual bird visitors continues. The other day, in our local park, we saw half a dozen large cormorants, or perhaps shags, sitting on a wooden platform in the middle of the lake. Surely cormorants are seabirds, found on rocky cliffs? But there they were slumming it among the ducks and coots. When we went back a few days later, I managed to get a distant photo of the only one who was still there.

By chance I had just read a very striking passage about cormorants in a marvellous book, Sea Room, by Adam Nicholson. Writing about the Shiant Islands off the Hebrides, he describes a close encounter with shags on a cliff face: ‘Nothing prepares you for the reality of the shag experience. It is an all-power meeting with an extraordinary, ancient, corrupt, imperial, angry, dirty, green-eyed, yellow-gaped, oil-skinned, iridescent, rancid, rock-hole glory that is Phalacrocorax aristotelis. They are scandal and poetry, chaos and individual rage, archaic, ancient beyond any sense of ancientness that other birds might convey.’ Gulp! I looked at our avian visitors with fear and respect, but they were gazing innocently at the trees, pretending to be suburban.

Phalacrocorax aristotelis is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

for those sorrowful melodies

In the bread section of the supermarket I was startled to see a tall baguette labelled ‘Pain Flute’. I was reading in English and thought the store’s labelling team had gone all poetical on a dark winter’s afternoon. Isn’t there a poem by Tagore which talks about the flute sounding the notes of the writer’s pain? When I’m trailing round supermarkets I often have low moments, and could easily imagine myself playing a pain flute at such times.

It sounded like a theatrical prop that might be used by a Japanese actor in Kabuki, perhaps a samurai sword transformed symbolically in the course of the action into a musical instrument, cutting through the formalities with its high, plaintive wail.

A moment later, of course, I came out of my reverie and remembered that ‘pain flute’ is a French term for a variety of baguette. But I had been briefly transported from the world of aspirational boulangerie to one where everyday objects carried mysterious, illuminating overtones.

Boulangerie poetry is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

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

‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard//Are sweeter’

I read this line aloud to Bob. ‘Do you think that’s true?’ I asked. ‘That unheard melodies are sweeter? I’m not sure I agree with Keats about that. I reckon that the sweet melodies you can actually hear are at least as nice as anything you can imagine.’

Bob considered. ‘Depends what’s not being heard’, he said.

Heard Melodies is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

our friendly robin

The winter weather has brought some unusual birds to our garden. A week or so ago we had a little flock of birds about the size of thrushes, but more colourful, with orangey plumage on their necks and chests. At around the same time the Guardian mentioned that its readers were reporting unusual bird sightings, and we learned from a photo that our own visitors were fieldfares. I’m sure I had never seen any in our part of London before.

For the past few days we’ve had an incredibly tame little robin in the garden. He seemed quite unafraid of us, and was happy to let us stand right underneath the tree and converse with him. He let me follow him round the garden with my camera, and he almost seemed to be posing for his photograph (see picture). I tried to communicate in what I thought were robin-like whistles until Bob told me to stop. ‘You’re probably saying something unacceptable.’

A friendly visitor is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

There never seems to be a blueprint for how to behave in such situations, which fortunately are quite rare. Every concert organiser and every audience seems to react differently. Yesterday the whole evening was spent, with the help of our concert agent,  in contacting everyone concerned and trying to decide what to do. We felt dreadful because the poor people of Cockermouth have had so much to contend with recently, and they had already had to re-locate our concert because of flooding in the original venue. Various alternatives having been discussed and pursued via rounds of phone calls, a solution to the concert problem was found very late last night. By a stroke of good luck, the Gould Trio was able to take our place at incredibly short notice. So now I’m at my desk instead of on a train, with  my suitcase still packed on the bed beside me, and the imagined landscape of Cumbria receding from my inner eye.

No journey to the north is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog