I've finished reading several novels I received as Christmas presents. All were enjoyable, but at least two of them seemed to run out of steam before the end. I won't say which they were, because it doesn't seem fair to books which were very well written overall, but...
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Historian Tom Holland was guest-editing the 'Today' programme on BBC Radio 4 recently. He spoke about his experience of AI 'hallucinations', that now increasingly well-known phenomenon whereby Artifical Intelligence makes up information in response to a question. Tom...
A friend has sent me information about a new piano, designed with an ergonomically curved keyboard. I have wondered about the feasibility of such a keyboard for a long time, but have never had the opportunity to try one. As a pianist, often required to traverse the...
This week I have been in Rome, where Bob was giving a seminar at La Sapienza University. We added on a few days to turn it into a little holiday. We visited the Keats museum at the Spanish Steps. I have been in Rome a number of times, and have toiled up and down the...
This week I'm giving a recital of music by historical women pianist-composers. I'll be playing an Erard grand piano made at the end of the 19th century by the firm of Sebastien Erard in Paris. (Officially the piano is dated around 1900, but a technician told me he...
The Coronation of King Charles III came in the same week that we heard the organisation Psappha, which promotes new music, had been forced to close because of funding problems. This in itself followed hard on the heels of threats to close the BBC Singers and reduce...
Talk of how people are going to watch the King's Coronation next week has reminded me of my father's tale about Queen Elizabeth's Coronation in 1953. My father had recently moved to Scotland to marry my Scottish mother. Before coming to Edinburgh, my dad had been...
Last week I was in Vienna for a few days of Easter holiday. We managed to pack in lots of music-related things: a concert at the Musikverein, an evening at the State Opera, a visit to one of Mozart's apartments, a visit to Haydn's house in what was the village of...
I have just been sent an American review of my book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces. The review actually came out a year ago, but I was not aware of it until now. A pity, as I would have liked to use a quote from it with the other quotes on the cover of the...
The other day I read a review in The Guardian of a book, 'In Good Hands', by conductor Alice Farnham, about the art and craft of conducting. I haven't read the book, but I was struck by several phrases the reviewer, Caroline Crampton, used when talking about classical...
Last night I attended the Advent Service in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. The service, which commemorates the events leading up to the birth of Christ, has a simple and irresistible narrative. At the beginning, the chapel is in darkness. Approaching from...
Last week a friend was showing me how she can call up musical scores on various electronic devices, linking the devices so that she can use whichever best suits her needs at the time. She even had the option of writing in fingerings and expression marks with an...
It was great to be part of the RSNO chamber series in Glasgow yesterday afternoon in its first 'live' concert for an in-person audience since the pandemic. That's a gap of almost three years! Photo shows (L to R) cellist Pei Jee Ng, me, violist Tom Dunn, violinist...
The paperback version of my book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces comes out today in the UK. (It comes out in the US on November 29.) One can't take it for granted that a hardback non-fiction book will go into paperback, so I'm grateful to Yale University Press for...
