The other day I was talking about piano-playing with some very good amateur pianists. As it happens, they were all high-flyers in other professions. A surgeon was saying ruefully that people don't realise how much work it takes to be a very good amateur pianist,...
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A friend and I have been discussing the career of a mutual friend who died recently. He was a fabulous musician who wasn't as well known as he should have been. Writers and visual artists can stay put in the place where they choose to live, and create their work...
I have been keeping half an eye on the 2025 Van Cliburn piano competition in Texas, partly because when I was writing Women and the Piano I did a fair amount of research into the gender disparity one can see in the lists of piano competition prizewinners around the...
So the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has suggested that musicians and other creative artists may need to re-train and look for other opportunities as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “I can’t pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that they were doing at...
Like many other musicians and freelancers in the arts world I have been shocked this week by further evidence that we are being treated less well than employees on furlough. Our workplaces remain closed by government order. Many freelance musicians have earned nothing...
Since lockdown, I've only had the chance to do one concert. It was a special one, though! - the Edinburgh Festival's Chamber Soundscapes online series. Although there was no audience, the performance took place under concert conditions. In five months of lockdown, I...
Today is a melancholy day, the funeral of one of my first college friends. He had battled for years with depression, anxiety and a cascade of associated health problems. His passing led to a burst of correspondence between those of us in his circle in those university...
During lockdown I have had plenty of time to practise slowly. Normally, I practise things because I'm getting ready to perform them. But with all concerts cancelled, there was no reason to prepare in the usual way - that is to say, securing things in a way that I knew...
Most people who learn piano will have come across Bach's Two-Part Inventions, but their eyes may not have alighted on his Foreword. Mine hadn't until the other day. 'Forthright instruction, wherewith lovers of the clavier, especially those eager to learn, are shown in...
This is probably the penultimate in my lockdown series about neglected music on my shelves. It has been a helpful focus for me during a phase when more people had time to read. As we start to come out of lockdown, it seems right to wrap it up. I'll try to get to...
Here's a curious piece from the late Baroque, composed by an 18th century Spanish priest who was a contemporary of Scarlatti. Padre Antonio Soler began studying music at his local monastery when he was only six, and by 14 had his first appointment as a cathedral...
Recently, at a Zoom meeting of my piano club, one of our members played Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Petite Suite de Concert. It was new to most of us, but we were all struck by its charm. I remember being puzzled when I first heard of a composer called Samuel Coleridge...
Zoom music-making has been a feature of lockdown. Hardly a week passes without someone sending me a link to a recording: Zoom choirs, Zoom orchestras and ensembles, each performer singing or playing away in their own home and on their own little screen. To create a...
We're hearing a lot about the days of heedless international travel being over for classical musicians. In today's Guardian, Charlotte Higgins does an admirable job of summing up some aspects of the situation. It's worth remembering that darting about to play in San...
Here's a neglected piece! Years ago, 'Rustle of Spring' was a favourite with amateur pianists, often of the older generation - 'Uncle So-and-So's party piece', to be trotted out (possibly in abridged form) at parties. But I haven't seen it on a concert programme for...