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,...
Interested in what Susan has to say about all things classical music? Subscribe below and whenever Susan writes a new blog post you will be notified by email. Simple!
On Monday there was a report in The Guardian about the benefits of being involved in music. This time it was, 'Playing a musical instrument or singing is linked to better memory in older age'. To my delight the next paragraph began, 'The piano was especially...
I was looking through the list of candidates for a concerto competition recently and was struck by the list of pieces they were playing. Mozart (lots), Haydn (several), Beethoven (several), Mendelssohn (several), Schumann (several), Chopin, Brahms (several), Grieg,...
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...
I've just finished reading a fascinating book published in 1944: The Baton and the Jackboot, by Berta Geissmar, the personal assistant of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler during his great days in Germany. After Geissmar had been forced to leave Germany during the Hitler...
Went for dinner with a number of friends, some young, some older. As it was our last gathering before the New Year, we found ourselves asking one another how the old year had been, and whether we had any plans for the new one. This kind of discussion usually provokes...
Went to a marvellous French film, ‘Of Gods and Men’. These days I’m often disappointed when I go to the cinema but this was an exception. The film tells the story of a group of Cistercian monks in a small monastery in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria at a time of...
Interesting article the other day in The Guardian about the fact that many people now chat online about what they’re watching on TV, while they’re watching it. They don’t wait for the end of the programme, but start commenting on Twitter right away about things that...
My old college has picked up on my book having been included in The Independent's 'Pick of 2010' last Friday. Read the article on the college website, where you can also find some fab photos of the chapel and so on.
The lake in Richmond Park had frozen over for the first time this winter. People were breaking off pieces of ice from the shore line or picking up stones from the paths, and skimming them over the frozen surface of the water. To my amazement, each stone played the...
To a viol masterclass given by the eiminent Catalan viol player Jordi Savall at the Royal College of Music. As always happens when I listen to 'early music', it took me a little while to tune in to the quiet sound level favoured by the players. It's so different from...
Despite the cold weather, there are still red roses blooming in the garden. But today when I looked out, there was frost on their petals. Somehow the sight of frost on the roses was poignant.
Here's something I hadn't seen before: an asymmetrical viola. Its owner, Rivka Golani, showed it to us when Bob interviewed her for Putney Music society this week. Rivka explained that the maker of the viola, Otto Erdesz, believed that the unusual cut-out on the...
At ChamberStudio yesterday we were working on a piece by Prokofiev. We were discussing the kind of piano writing that's often found in works by Russian composers of the Soviet era. As the writing is typically rather spare and empty-looking on the page, with a...