I woke up in total darkness early this morning and for a few moments thought I was back in my house in London. In the darkness I thought the wardrobe was on my right and the windows straight ahead at the end of the bed, as they were in London. I realised fairly...
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I have been proofreading my book about Nocturnes, which has reached the stage of being typeset. This is the point at which it starts to look like a proper book. As the author, you dare to believe that it will one day really be published and start to live in heads...
I was lying awake in the night, with music playing in my head as it usually does when I'm awake in the wee small hours. Sometimes I set the music going consciously, as for example when I'm 'practising' something I'm currently trying to learn or memorise. At other...
I haven't yet seen the movie 'LaLa Land' (it doesn't open in the UK until tomorrow). But I enjoyed hearing BBC Radio 4's 'Today' item this morning on how Ryan Gosling, who plays a struggling jazz musician in the film, learned to play the piano for it. He does all the...
Today I'm making my Christmas cake, a few days ahead of 'Stir-up Sunday' which is, I believe, this coming Sunday. It's a traditional day for families to get together to make steamed Christmas puddings, and in these days when most households have their own ovens, baked...
The weather has been extremely humid lately and my piano doesn't like it. I have a little device which registers the temperature and humidity; for weeks it has been announcing the humidity as 75%. I have an older piano with ivory key coverings (newer pianos have...
This morning there was a discussion on Radio 4 about the response of the arts in the UK to the Brexit vote. Contributors rightly said that there is much we can and must do to understand who we are, what are the social issues facing us, how can we forge a constructive...
The UK vote to leave the European Union has shocked the classical music world, particularly the young European musicians who have opted to study, live or work in the UK courtesy of EU rules and funding. I've taught them and played with them on various courses and have...
Two recent topics of conversation have come together in my mind to prompt a question. Topic 1: the number of classical concert reviews is shrinking rapidly. Everyone in the profession has noticed it. Many newspapers are reducing the number of classical reviews they...
We have a lovely cat, Daisy, whom we 'rescued' from a cat shelter. Shortly after she moved in, another cat got in through the catflap one evening. We were out and didn't see what happened, but the two cats had clearly had an epic struggle. Clumps of cat fur were on...
At the weekend I had an unusual experience. Following the conclusion of BBC Young Musician and viewers' anger that the result was so under-reported, I wrote a letter to The Guardian about the wider issue. We've heard a lot recently about orchestras folding, opera...
In today's Guardian I have a letter which aroused quite a lot of interest when it appeared online yesterday. Please share it if you agree. Here's what I said: 'Much of the recent discourse around classical music and its troubles has contained a subtext of glee at the...
Today I went to the BP Portrait Exhibition, a favourite annual exhibition. As for some years now, the emphasis was on near-photographic realism, achieved with admirable technical skill but occasionally at the expense of 'suggestiveness' if I could put it like that. By...
It's hard to keep up with changing perceptions in the world of music. We classical musicians are used to being the butt of complaints that our concerts are off-putting because of their focus on accuracy and daunting accomplishment. Unfortunately there's no way round...
While baking a cake this morning, I listened to an excellent BBC Radio 4 programme, 'The Joy of 9 to 5', about managers. Presenter Lucy Kellaway investigated what managers actually do, and introduced us to some new approaches to management, emanating in particular...