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...
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!
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 watching the BBC Young Musician competition on television for many years now. Slowly, the competition has slipped from the major channels and is now shown on BBC4, whose output currently seems to consist of repeats, archive material and cultural things that...
A curious thing happened at a concert of mine last week. We had rehearsed in the afternoon (piano plus string quartet) and when everyone was comfortable with the positions of their chairs and instruments, we marked up the stage with various colours of sticky tape so...
I played a piano recital the other evening at the home of some friends. It was a lovely evening, and behind the piano, the French doors were wide open to the garden. About ten minutes from the end of my recital, as I was sailing full steam ahead with the final piece,...
This is my 200th blog post! Here's a photo of me playing for an invited audience recently in someone’s private home. I really like playing (and also going to hear) house concerts, which feel like a variant on the ‘salons’ of previous centuries. Understandably, such...
Our cat’s preferred brand of catfood has a disarming slogan: ‘As good as it looks’. The layers of meaning quiver in front of your eyes almost as much as the meaty jelly does when you spoon it out. Obviously, 'as good as it looks' is meant to put positive thoughts in...
After rejoicing that the BBC had improved its ‘Young Musician of the Year’ coverage so markedly in 2010, I had to grind my teeth with annoyance as I watched the ‘Eurovision Young Musicians 2010’ competition on BBC4 this evening. The young musicians were tremendous,...
I was in Provence in the south of France last week and visited the Abbey of Silvacane, founded by the Cistercians in the late 12th century but long since abandoned. I thought it one of the loveliest churches I’ve seen. The church, cloister, garden, chapter house,...
I didn’t manage to catch many of the programmes charting the progress of BBC Young Musician of the Year 2010, but I’m proud to say that I did pick out the eventual winner, 16-year-old pianist Lara Omeroglu, when she first appeared in a keyboard category final. Not...
My remarks about the red daisies which bent, but did not break as the lawn mower passed by, have caused some interesting correspondence. People have pointed out that several old civilisations realised the wisdom of bending in order to avoid breaking. A friend tells...
Listening to a jazz radio station as we made dinner, I was surprised to hear the announcer describe every track as ‘a song’, even though the programme was a sequence of purely instrumental tracks. ‘What’s your next song?’ he kept saying to his guest, who’d reply...
Unusual flowers have appeared in our little lawn this year. Violets, which we’ve never seen in the garden before, and daisies which are bright pink or deep red (see photo). When it was time to mow the lawn, we sorrowfully bade them farewell. The lawn was also full of...
I’ve just finished reading ‘Julie and Julia’, an entertaining account of Julie Powell’s year spent cooking her way through Julia Child’s 1961 ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’, the book which famously opened the American public’s eyes to the art and style of...
Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday, dear website, Happy birthday to you! This blog 'went live' one year ago today. To mark the occasion, what better than a photo of the cherry blossom which has just come out in the garden? The first...