On Wednesday I played a solo recital in Ambleside Church as part of the Lake District Summer Music festival. My programme contained six pieces by the female pianist-composers whose work I have been performing in the past couple of years. In the context, I was touched...
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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...
Very sad news that the Scottish jazz pianist Brian Kellock died last night. Brian was revered in the Scottish jazz world and far beyond. I didn't know him well, but I had got to know him a bit through attending his Sunday afternoon performances (with double bassist...
The BBC2 series 'Masterchef' has come to an end with Steven Edwards winning the title. One of the competitors' final tasks was to cook for a roomful of distinguished chefs, well known from Michelin-starred restaurants around the UK. This is always a fascinating event,...
I've been practising Schumann's 'Papillons', a cycle of piano pieces containing various motifs and references which reappear in his later piano music. It seems that for Schumann, butterflies were associated with the novels of Jean Paul, one of his favourite authors,...
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....
I'm really looking forward to Sunday's concert at Wigmore Hall with Erich Höbarth. It's the second in our pair of concerts this season featuring duo sonatas by Mozart for piano and violin. What a treat it has been to be so closely involved with this music - and this...
Yes, yes, I know that today is the 100th anniversary of the celebrated premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. But this is my husband Bob's recollection of the 50th anniversary in 1963. Bob was in the Upper Circle of the Royal Albert Hall with a group of students...
Spring seems to be arriving late this year, but my favourite spot in London for spring colours, the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, is defying the cold weather and starting to look fabulous. Whoever planted the azaleas here was a genius of gardening. This year...
On Saturday 11 May I'm presenting an edition of BBC Radio 3's Saturday Classics programme from 2-4pm, with my choice of recordings. There's some Fauré, Schumann, Chopin, Saint-Saens, Josef Strauss, Billy Mayerl, a couple of pieces of Mozart, and the Bill Evans Trio...
A chance encounter after a recent concert gave me the chance to visit the beautifully refurbished Savoy Hotel at the invitation of Jon Nickoll, the pianist in the famous American Bar. I've long wanted to visit the Savoy, where Billy Mayerl made his name as the young...
We have been in snowy Vienna, where we were invited to hear a performance of Beethoven's opera 'Fidelio' in the very theatre where it was premiered (see photo). We were sitting right behind Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor. It was thrilling to be in the Theater an...
Yesterday I gave some coaching to the Minerva Piano Trio, who had brought the first version of Brahms's B major Trio opus 8. He composed it around 1853-54, at the time when he first got to know the Schumanns, Clara and Robert. It's well known that he became very close...
Out of the blue has come a letter from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, telling me that I have been awarded the 2013 Walter Wilson Cobbett Medal for distinguished services to chamber music. WW Cobbett was a successful businessman whose true passion was chamber...