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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I have done an interview for the 'Brainland' podcast, a series 'where neuroscience, the arts and humanities mingle'. An old college friend, doctor and cellist Steve Brown, interviewed me about how I got started in music, how I got into chamber music, what motivates...
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,...
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...
I was teaching at the Guildhall today. All the students were excellent – that didn’t surprise me, because I know what a high standard there is at London’s big music colleges these days. Not one of my students was British – that didn’t surprise me either. What did...
We were listening to a jazz station on the radio as we cooked dinner. A saxophone player meandered interminably through a long dull solo without ever finding a way to extricate himself. It was like listening to a fly struggling in a spoonful of honey. Bob went over...
The clocks went back last night, and we all had an extra hour in bed. This should have been ideal at the end of a day of recording Shostakovich. Recording is an arduous process and I was looking forward to relaxing when it was all over. But could I take advantage of...
This weekend, the Florestan Trio is recording the first piano trio by Shostakovich, a student work of the composer's. We're adding it to a Shostakovich disc which we recorded a little while ago, and the whole CD will come out in the New Year on the Hyperion label. On...
Yesterday, when I was coaching at King's Place, we had a tea break between sessions. Some of the younger participants were airing their current dilemmas about fees and conditions. In particular, they were wondering aloud about their situation as young professionals:...
Inspired by a couple of recent articles about writers who were well-known in their lifetimes and forgotten afterwards, or never acknowledged at the time but discovered years later by accident (like Hans Keilson), I’ve been researching unusual repertoire in the hope of...
It's getting cold... When I was out for a walk on a chilly morning this week and saw this little round creature staring into the lake, I felt I was seeing a kindred spirit.
I’m excited about Sunday, my first day of teaching at ChamberStudio, the new venture at King’s Place in London. ChamberStudio offers high-level coaching for post-graduate and young professional chamber groups who don’t have access to regular tuition any more. As...
Bemused by all the talk about university degrees and their supposed link to salaries. Lord Browne’s report seems to assume that if you go to university you will inevitably have more earning power than non-graduates in the years ahead. In the performing arts, however,...