During the Christmas holidays we watched The Sound of Music on television. Some parts of it will forever be charming, while other parts have not worn so well. No matter - it's still a feast of nostalgia for those of us who remember the film when it first came out. Bob...
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A reader has asked me to specify my favourite books of the year. I keep a note in my diary of the books I read, and this year I read 42 books in their entirety, plus a few more I didn't finish. Here are my top five favourites: 1. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth....
On Saturday there was a lovely article in The Guardian about Paul Barton, a man who plays the piano to elephants at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. The elephants have often been overworked or mistreated before they come to the sanctuary, but it seems that they...
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...
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;...
I'm giving three masterclasses this coming week: at the Royal Academy of Music on Monday, at Trinity College of Music on Tuesday, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Thursday (details on the Concert and Events Schedule tab at the top of this page). I...
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...
It’s always so interesting how each audience has its own character, even though each audience is a random collection of people. I have been to see the film ‘The King’s Speech’ twice recently in my local cinema. On the first occasion, nobody moved when the film ended....
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 was discussing the challenges of life in chamber music with a fellow musician from one of the big London orchestras. He told me the following joke, or rather 'joke', which orchestral players tell about chamber musicians: Question: How does a chamber musician make a...
There was lively debate at King’s College London following my talk yesterday. I had spoken about the interpreter’s task as I see it, taking as my title a remark of György Sebök’s, ‘Play the contents and not the container’. In my talk I used ‘contents’ to refer to...
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...
I've been in Germany, where I attended a christening in a lovely old Baroque church in Bavaria (see photo). Music was provided by friends and family members playing various instruments in the gallery of the church. The baby's grandfather had composed a Pastorale for...
I've been in Scotland, where I enjoyed seeing Raeburn's portrait of the 18th-century Scottish fiddler Niel Gow in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. I was amused by the information beside the painting, which explained that 'as a fiddler, Gow was especially...