I was at Steinway Hall in London the other day to try some pianos for a recording project later this year (of which more news soon). Chief technician Ulrich Gerharz had helped me - after discussing the repertoire and the venue - to whittle the choice down to two...
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I was lying awake in the night, with music playing in my head as it usually does when I'm awake in the wee small hours. Sometimes I set the music going consciously, as for example when I'm 'practising' something I'm currently trying to learn or memorise. At other...
Bob went to the wine shop and returned with a few bottles and a page of 'tasting notes' supplied by the shop. As usual I was charmed by the poetic way that wine producers describe their products. 'Notes of ripe, dark fruit, tobacco, chocolate and spice'. 'Delicate...
I went to a couple of concerts at the Lammermuir Festival - by the excellent Quatuor Mosaiques - over the days since the Queen's death. Each concert started with a minute's silence in honour of The Queen. At the end of the minute, the players arrived quietly on stage...
Several times recently I have been out blackberry picking on the hills around Edinburgh. I've gone at different times of day, mostly at weekends. Each time I've met other people picking blackberries too. We've swapped ideas about what to do with them. Blackberry...
It was sad to read that the French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé has died at the age of 89. I first came across his drawings when my French class at school studied Le Petit Nicolas, the delightful adventures of a little French boy in an idealised 1950s world. It was...
Limelight, Australia's leading arts magazine, has reviewed my book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces. The book came out a year ago, so I was surprised to learn about a new review. You can only read the whole review online if you're a subscriber, but here's an...
There's news today of an important new women's health strategy in England. 'Ministers have vowed to tackle decades of “systemic” and “entrenched” gender health inequality in England with plans to introduce compulsory women’s health training for doctors, more cancer...
Last week I was in Cerne Abbas, Dorset, for the Gaudier Ensemble's annual festival of chamber music in the village church. I think I have played in 27 of the festivals. Of course, the pandemic blew a two-year hole in proceedings and this was my first visit since 2019....
I have just been reading an astonishing little book which a friend lent me - The Death of Franz Liszt, based on the unpublished diary of his pupil Lina Schmalhausen (Cornell University Press, 2002). The distinguished Liszt biographer Alan Walker came across Lina's...
I have been following - online - the Van Cliburn piano competition which takes place every four years in Fort Worth, Texas. As well as being one of the world's most prestigious it must be the most generous, with an array of prizes and offers of management, concert...
I have been listening to various recordings of Mozart's K488 piano concerto made by pianists in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. In all of them, as if by some strange consensus, the slow movement is taken very slowly. It seems to have been a fashion back then to treat Mozart...
I'm currently practising Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major K488 for a performance with the New Edinburgh Orchestra on June 25 (please come along if you live nearby!) Mozart's glorious A major concerto is still probably my favourite (apart from all my other favourite...
The other week I was visiting relatives in the south of England, and we went to the coast for an outing. The beach was covered in stones of attractive pink, white and russet colours, and as usual I found myself searching among the stones for examples of rounded ones....
A couple of readers said they'd like to hear more about Radu Lupu. I only met him a few times and didn't know him well, but I vividly remember the impression he made. When I went for my lessons, I was probably focusing on trying to play each phrase as beautifully as I...