An old friend of mine, a fellow musician, wrote to tell me about a lovely dream he had had. He, I and another musician friend were sitting in the branches of a cherry tree playing music together. 'The cherries were the notes!' he said. He didn't say what instrument I...
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Wimbledon Championship Fortnight is halfway through and I have spent quite a lot of time watching tennis, with occasional breaks for some piano practice. Whenever I watch a lot of tennis, or more particularly when I listen to a lot of expert commentary, I feel that my...
I've been gradually playing through the whole volume of Mozart piano sonatas, and the other day I reached the B flat Sonata, K333. This piece holds unpleasant memories for me because when I was doing my O-levels, or Highers, I forget which, I had to perform some of it...
City Music Society, which holds its concerts at Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool St Station in London, is starting its 'early evening' autumn series on Wednesday night, 16 October, with a piano recital by me. Tickets are free for students under 25 with valid ID....
A doctor friend has sent me an excerpt from the current edition of the British Medical Journal in which their writer 'Minerva' reports: 'Great composers have tended to die young, but great performing musicians often carry on getting better as they get older. An...
At the weekend I went to watch a tango club at which an old friend of mine teaches. I know nothing about tango, though I've been to a few Argentine tango shows in London, and recently I had a lot of fun playing in a late-night performance of some Piazzolla tangos....
Another Cerne Abbas festival has come to an end. Remembering last year's dreadful weather, during which one of the group had to drive to Dorchester to buy some thermal undergarments, I had packed some rather warm concert clothes, which I regretted as soon as I...
Someone has drawn my attention to the fact that last Saturday, in the Family section of the Guardian, a reader submitted a favourite recipe along with a recollection of her childhood, in which her late mother played the piano music of Billy Mayerl on the family's...
I'm coming towards the end of my week in Fiesole, a week of baking heat during which I have realised that much of the music we've been studying must have been written in a cooler climate. In this kind of intense heat we can hardly face playing, or even hearing, some...
A few months ago, disheartened by the difficulty of 'growing' my blog readership, I consulted some of my students about the situation. I say 'students' but in fact they are all high-achieving young professionals who come for the occasional coaching. They all agreed...
The Guardian weekend magazine has a page, 'Your Pictures', where they ask for photo contributions on a given theme. For today, the theme was 'produce'. I sent in a photo of our favourite Egyptian geese, whom we've been feeding for years on visits to Richmond Park....
Sad news this week that Steinway Pianos is to be sold to a private equity company. What does this mean for pianists? On the face of it, nothing; it's just a change of owner for the firm. But a friend writes from New York that the Steinway showroom on Manhattan's 57th...
I'm almost at the end of a longish period of learning the notes of a batch of works I'll be playing over the summer in different concerts and festivals. The large pile of music on the side of my piano has loomed fearsomely over me for a while, but is now starting to...
Feeling slightly disturbed by large advert in today's Guardian: 'Do you know the value of your instrument?' it asks, above a photo of 'A Fine French Violin by JB Vuillaume'. It goes on, 'The last 20 years have seen a huge price increase in the value of musical...
In today's Guardian I have a letter on the subject of political lobbying, which is headline news in the UK at the moment. The letter was cut before being published, and I felt that part of my specific point had been lost, so in case anyone would like to read the full...