This week I'm giving a recital of music by historical women pianist-composers. I'll be playing an Erard grand piano made at the end of the 19th century by the firm of Sebastien Erard in Paris. (Officially the piano is dated around 1900, but a technician told me he...
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The Coronation of King Charles III came in the same week that we heard the organisation Psappha, which promotes new music, had been forced to close because of funding problems. This in itself followed hard on the heels of threats to close the BBC Singers and reduce...
Last week I was in Vienna for a few days of Easter holiday. We managed to pack in lots of music-related things: a concert at the Musikverein, an evening at the State Opera, a visit to one of Mozart's apartments, a visit to Haydn's house in what was the village of...
I've been trying to prepare my mind for tomorrow's BBC recording of a discussion between me and fellow pianist James Rhodes for Radio 4's Between Ourselves programme (to be broadcast on April 26 at 9.00 and again at 21.30). James has found a way to bring classical...
Noriko Ogawa arrived back safely from Japan, and here we are playing piano duets for Woman's Hour. We're also talking about my book 'Out of Silence' which Noriko is translating into Japanese. The broadcast is on Tuesday 29 March sometime between 10 and 11am, and you...
Woman’s Hour, the iconic BBC Radio 4 programme, is to feature an interview with me and fellow pianist Noriko Ogawa on March 29. The interview was originally planned as a discussion between me and Noriko about my book ‘Out of Silence’, which Noriko is currently...
Here's the Florestan Trio on stage at Wigmore Hall at the end of our Monday lunchtime concert. It was broadcast live on Radio 3 and will be repeated this Saturday 19 March at 2pm. It's also available this week on iPlayer. It's always a delight to play at Wigmore...
I have been in Germany, where one of the Florestan Trio's performances was in the beautiful 18th century Schloss Bruchsal, a place I admit I hadn't heard of. It turned out that Mozart had visited there, not to play, but to have a meeting with the powerful...
After coaching chamber music at various music colleges this week, I’m still baffled about how chamber music can attain its proper status in higher education. My visit often begins with students explaining that they have struggled to find time to rehearse together;...
Thank you to those kind people in the Lofoten Islands who wrote to me after I played in the music festival there last week. By popular request, here is another photo I took, this time from the plane on the way back to the Norwegian mainland. The scene reminded me of...
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...
I’m preparing lots of music for a trip next week to the Lofoten Islands of Norway, inside the Arctic Circle. Their summer festival of chamber music is already established as a rather special event in the calendar, and their new winter festival is an intriguing...
I've been in Scotland, giving a talk and masterclass at the Edinburgh Society of Musicians, founded in 1887. Their meetings take place in an fascinating house now shared by several of the city's musical societies. The house was built in the late 19th century, and...
Yesterday I went to a concert in memory of the Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh who founded the International Musicians' Seminars in Prussia Cove, which I attended as a student for many years. Vegh died on 7 January 1997 and for the past few years, a group of string...
I've just finished reading a fascinating book published in 1944: The Baton and the Jackboot, by Berta Geissmar, the personal assistant of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler during his great days in Germany. After Geissmar had been forced to leave Germany during the Hitler...