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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Channel 4's series The Piano began its second series last night. It's always interesting to see the different playing styles of the pianists who put themselves forward to play a station piano in front of a crowd of listeners. Some of them play beautifully. However,...
Today is 'World Piano Day' (as if every day wasn't piano day!) and Yale University Press has been tweeting a little clip of me talking about the French pianist-composer Hélène de Montgeroult. De Montgeroult is one of the pianist-composers featured in my new book Women...
Talk on the radio this morning about obesity epidemics in various countries has prompted me to show this photo of a meal I ate a few days ago in an old Bierkeller in Vienna: spinach dumplings with sheep's cheese. A delicious meal, but rather startling to behold when...
One afternoon in Vienna we went out to visit the place where Mozart was buried, in the Sankt Marx cemetery outside the old city walls. Today the burial ground, no longer used since the 1880s, lies forlornly in the midst of motorway flyovers, housing estates,...
To a talk at the Guildhall School of Music about musicians' injuries. 'Suffering for their Art', presented by Helen Reid, explored the complex topic of how performers deal with injuries which prevent them from playing their instruments. It seems that musicians are...
Yesterday on the flight home from Norway, our flight crew announced that the airline had just installed free WiFi on certain planes, including ours. As I had a laptop with me I was able to send my first e-mail from the sky. Even more amazingly, a reply pinged straight...
It's hard to imagine getting blasé about smoked salmon, but I have nearly managed it here in Trondheim. At the hotel's generous breakfast buffet there's a special stand, known to us musicians as 'the salmon station', where you can get smoked and cured salmon of...
This week I'm on the jury of the Trondheim International Chamber Competition, which this year is for piano trios. During the day we've been listening to nine piano trios playing very demanding programmes, and in the evenings we've been rehearsing for and playing in...
In Trondheim in Norway, where the chamber music festival this week is featuring the music of Australian composer Brett Dean. Stylish posters advertise the concerts around town, playing on the titles of works being performed in the festival, or on events associated...
Usually I take part in music festivals, so to be invited to a Literary Festival is an exciting change. Yesterday I was at the Rye Festival talking about music and musicians. In between readings and bits of talk, I played little piano pieces. I'd been given one of...
Delayed for three hours today on a train journey from Edinburgh to London because of the high winds, apparently the tail-end of the hurricane which has now reached the UK from across the Atlantic. Just before leaving Edinburgh, we managed to climb Blackford Hill (see...
For the last month or so I’ve had a wart on the tip of my left index finger. A wart! I’ve never had one before. I think I had associated them with ghastly mediaeval illustrations, or fairytales in which unpleasant things get inflicted by magic on evil-doers. Anyway,...
At the weekend, several newspapers carried photos of thieves in China using chopsticks to pick people’s pockets as they browsed market stalls. The chopsticks are used essentially to make the thief’s fingers much longer and thinner – a sort of variant on the Edward...
I practise the piano in a room at the front of the house. People walk past in the street all the time, and I’ve always been amazed at how few of them turn their heads in the direction of the sound, or appear to notice it at all. I mentioned this recently to a concert...