The other day when I was a little early for a meeting I climbed the steps to the Old Calton Burial Ground (see photo) to go and look at the monument to the philosopher David Hume. It's a kind of empty stone cylinder into which the sunlight shines, and is always...
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A little while ago I wrote something about a piano piece by Robert Schumann, in which he had instructed the player to play 'con accurezza' - with accuracy. It still seems an amusing little moment because of the questions it raises. I came across another such moment...
The other day I was playing through some of Schubert's 'Deutsche Tänze' or German Dances, little dances in triple time which were very popular in Schubert's day. His many 'Deutsche' were clearly designed for practical use, such as someone playing them on the piano...
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...
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...