Susan Tomes is a pianist and writer. Renowned as a soloist and as a chamber musician, she’s also the author of seven books.
Susan Tomes has won numerous international awards as a pianist, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, including several Gramophone Awards and the 2013 Cobbett Medal.
She is a solo pianist as well as a chamber musician. She has made fifty CDs and has been at the heart of the internationally admired ensembles Domus, the Gaudier Ensemble and the Florestan Trio with whom she won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
She is also the author of six acclaimed books. The Piano – a History in 100 Pieces (Yale, 2021) was a ‘Book of the Year’ in The Spectator and the Financial Times. Her seventh book, Women and the Piano – A History in 50 Lives, comes out from Yale University Press on 12 March 2024 and will be launched on that day with a solo concert by Susan in London’s Wigmore Hall.
Smetana’s piano music and the use of ‘vibrato’
A little while ago I wrote something about a piano piece by Robert Schumann, in which he had instructed the player to play 'con accurezza' - with accuracy. It still seems an amusing little moment because of the questions it raises. I came across another such moment...
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