The other day I was part of a coffee gathering where people from various lines of work were talking about their experiences of writing 'risk assessments'. They described the complicated forms that had to be filled in and the efforts to explain what preventive measures...
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Two weeks today I'll be playing a recital at London's Wigmore Hall to mark the launch of my new book about the history of women playing the piano. My programme consists of music by some of the historical women featured in the book. I've been wondering how many of...
I was looking through the list of candidates for a concerto competition recently and was struck by the list of pieces they were playing. Mozart (lots), Haydn (several), Beethoven (several), Mendelssohn (several), Schumann (several), Chopin, Brahms (several), Grieg,...
Since my last post, I've heard from a number of fellow pianists who don't play from memory because they specialise in song recitals or chamber music, and have a vast and ever-changing repertoire. They point out that one good reason to experiment with playing from an...
Yesterday BBC Music Magazine tweeted that pianist Artur Pizarro had played a concert in which he read from the music, using an iPad to display the notes. It's one of several recent reports about classical musicians using the score, reading from an electronic gadget of...
".... your ultimate companion to a summer of music", says today's Guardian Guide to Festivals. But is it? Not if classical music is your thing. I subscribe to the Guardian, look forward to reading it every day and love it to bits, but every year when they publish...
Watch the new YouTube video which is linked to the album of Mozart piano and violin sonatas played by me and Erich Höbarth. The live recordings were made at concerts in Perth last year and have just become available as an e-album. You'll hear a short excerpt from the...
My e-album of Mozart Sonatas for piano and violin, made with the wonderful Erich Höbarth, goes live today. You can buy it from CD Baby, and also from iTunes, Amazon, and lots of other download sites like Google Music Store, Shazam, Nokia, Rhapsody and MediaNet. You...
Here I am in Stationers' Hall, one of the beautiful old Guild Halls in the City of London, on the evening of the Cobbett Medal presentation. It was a slightly dreamlike experience, to be ushered into a solemn and formal room in which the 'Court' of the Worshipful...
A chance encounter after a recent concert gave me the chance to visit the beautifully refurbished Savoy Hotel at the invitation of Jon Nickoll, the pianist in the famous American Bar. I've long wanted to visit the Savoy, where Billy Mayerl made his name as the young...
A nice surprise this morning - my Cobbett Medal (to be presented next week at a dinner of the Worshipful Company of Musicians) is mentioned in the Herald newspaper. I was re-reading a chapter from my first book the other day, in preparation for yesterday's event at...
We have been in snowy Vienna, where we were invited to hear a performance of Beethoven's opera 'Fidelio' in the very theatre where it was premiered (see photo). We were sitting right behind Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor. It was thrilling to be in the Theater an...
I have had a delightful letter from a piano trio in Tokyo, asking for advice about how to perform Judith Weir's first Piano Trio. The work ends with the pianist banging shut the lid over the piano keyboard, dryly snapping everyone out of the realm of music and back...
Yesterday I gave some coaching to the Minerva Piano Trio, who had brought the first version of Brahms's B major Trio opus 8. He composed it around 1853-54, at the time when he first got to know the Schumanns, Clara and Robert. It's well known that he became very close...
Out of the blue has come a letter from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, telling me that I have been awarded the 2013 Walter Wilson Cobbett Medal for distinguished services to chamber music. WW Cobbett was a successful businessman whose true passion was chamber...