At the competition in Munich last week (I was on the jury) I encountered a very modern problem. The way the competition was run was similar to most of the other competitions I've been involved with: at the end of each round, the results were announced. Those who were...
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There was an article in The Guardian this week about the dwindling number of highly-trained piano tuners in Australia. Not only is the pool of piano tuners getting smaller, it is in danger of not being replenished because there aren't enough training courses in this...
Hyperion Records, which was recently bought by Universal, has decided to make its catalogue of recordings available on streaming platforms for the first time. The first batch of 200 Hyperion recordings has just gone up on Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes and so on. As the...
The other night, at the theatre, I was amazed by how freely people in the audience were coughing. At one point, the coughs became so frequent that it was like hearing bull-frogs calling to one another at night from different parts of the swamp. I actually started to...
At last the printed score has arrived for the trio by Huw Watkins. We’re giving the world premiere in the Wigmore Hall on November 25. When the newly published score arrived, I already knew the notes of the piano part, because I’ve been working from an electronic PDF...
The choice of music on this series of Strictly Come Dancing is a great disappointment. What an opportunity they have to range over the world’s fantastic dance music, and what a shame they don’t take it! I find it particularly annoying when the on-stage band is so...
An intriguing hour at ‘The Sacred Made Real’, a National Gallery exhibition of Spanish religious art from 1600-1700. Although it had some wonderful paintings, its main focus was a series of statues – of Christ, of Mary, and of various saints - carved from wood and...
Richmond Park this morning offered many examples of a discouraging sight which is fast becoming familiar in the parks round here: of dog-walkers absorbed in conversations on their mobile phones, while their dogs trail meekly behind them. Are we really still a nation...
Yesterday I was astounded to hear a golfer talking on the radio about the current trend whereby competitors in golf championships are ferried from tee to green in little buggies. When asked whether it was really so hard to walk that short distance, the golfer replied...
One of the professors at the RSAMD said a very interesting thing when I was there the other day. We were talking about the difference that the existence of recordings has made to learning new works. He said that it's quite common for his students to come to their...
Kemble Pianos, the UK's last piano manufacturing firm, closed today. Read my comments in today's Guardian arts blog here.
Fascinating article in today’s Guardian about the hidden antagonism which some top sportsmen feel, or come to feel, towards their chosen sport. It seems they’re reluctant to voice such feelings because they know the general public regards them as fortunate beyond...
We had dinner last night with a friend who plays professionally in a string quartet. He’d been coaching a young string quartet from Paris. They got to talking about rehearsal venues, always a vexing problem for chamber groups and one that I and my friends have never...
Well, I wasn't sitting in an empty room, but I can't pretend that my discussion session in Glasgow was a great success. Had it not been for several members of the teaching faculty coming to my rescue, it would have been a rather silent room. My masterclass was most...
In the past few days I’ve spent some time studying scores of pieces I’m going to be teaching in a masterclass at the RSAMD this week. The date has been in my diary for a long time, but because the academic year only began a couple of weeks ago, it was impossible to...