There was an article in the paper the other day about the sale of a valuable private collection of art works, some of which hadn't come onto the art market for a long time. It got me thinking about art and how a collector can buy a painting and keep it somewhere...
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A friend of mine was talking about his lodger, a very fine student pianist who often practises on the piano in the house. My friend said to me, 'This may sound crazy, but when I play the piano after she's been practising, I often have the feeling that the piano is...
The other day I was thrilled to come across the concept of 'friction-maxxing'. 'Friction-maxxing' is a term recently invented to describe the conscious attempt to balance the high-tech smoothness of your life with other activities requiring old-school effort and...
I was looking through the list of candidates for a concerto competition recently and was struck by the list of pieces they were playing. Mozart (lots), Haydn (several), Beethoven (several), Mendelssohn (several), Schumann (several), Chopin, Brahms (several), Grieg,...
During the Christmas holidays we watched The Sound of Music on television. Some parts of it will forever be charming, while other parts have not worn so well. No matter - it's still a feast of nostalgia for those of us who remember the film when it first came out. Bob...
We were discussing the fact that there are so few concert reviews in the newspaper these days. Time was when most concerts in prestigious venues were reviewed the next day. But now there are few reviews. What gets covered? - the Proms, perhaps, and some special visits...
I've been in Cambridge, where I played a solo recital on Thursday at Kettle's Yard (see photo), a delightful art gallery/museum I used to love visiting when I was a student. The audience at Kettle's Yard has a particular character - perhaps it's partly my expectation,...
We recently visited a lovely cafe situated on a cliff top near the sea in East Lothian. The walk to the cafe took us along the cliffs in splendid weather with seagulls wheeling around us, a brisk wind blowing (as usual) and the sea sparkling. We went inside the cafe...
A belated review of my book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces has been prompted by a debate on X, formerly known as Twitter. The debate began when comedian and actor Adrian Edmondson was the guest on Desert Island Discs and declared (half-humorously, I think) that...
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...
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...
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...