The April 2024 issue of BBC Music magazine carries a short but sweet review of my book Women and the Piano. As the text is too indistinct to read in the photo, this is what it says: 'Revealed within the pages of this elegantly written book by pianist and author Susan...
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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...
My 2010 book Out of Silence has received a decade-late review in American Record Guide - in the nicest possible way. Their reviewer Bruno Repp had written a long article about lesser-known piano music he thought readers would enjoy discovering. He ended with this...
Yesterday Radio 3's 'Building a Library' feature on CD Review focused on Schumann's first piano trio, in D minor opus 63. Erica Jeal's overall recommendation was for a 1958 recording of Emil Gilels, Msistlav Rostropovich and Leonid Kogan, and her choice for the best...
Lots of people seem to have been interested in the Guardian review, (see previous post), so here's another one of the same concert which appeared yesterday in the the Perthshire Advertiser: 'Since the opening of Perth Concert Hall, last Friday evening's concert was...
Blowing my own trumpet, or rather hammering my own Klavier - but it's not so often that one gets a five-star review in the Guardian! Here's the review of my concert in Perth last Friday with violinist Erich Höbarth: 'Some of the most intuitive, candid and affectionate...
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the jury’s deliberations on the Cardiff Singer of the World final on Sunday night. I’d watched most of the other rounds and had realised it was going to be a difficult choice. It was an exceptionally good line-up, and...
I read last week of the death of ex-Sony chief Norio Ohga, the ‘father of the CD’. When Sony launched the CD format in 1982, Mr Ohga insisted that a disc must be long enough to contain his favourite piece, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This determined the 75-minute...
My book 'Out of Silence' has been chosen by The Independent as one of the 'best books for Christmas - our pick of 2010'. I'm told by my publisher that this has led to .... well, if not a surge exactly, then a 'bijou surgette' in orders on Amazon. Hooray! The...
What a pleasure to hear the John Wilson Orchestra in their Rodgers and Hammerstein Prom, which I heard on television. John Wilson’s arrangements are simply spellbinding. His hand-picked orchestra, with many individually distinguished musicians playing in it, reminded...
Today's Independent newspaper has a review of new books on music, with several paragraphs devoted to mine. Click here if you'd like to read the article by the Independent's literary editor Boyd Tonkin.
Richard Osborne devotes a large part of his Music column in 'The Oldie' magazine (Summer 2010) to my new book. As I don't have a picture of the magazine I've chosen instead an illustration of an real oldie, one of the 700-year-old oaks in Richmond Park. Richard...
Two more reviews of my book 'Out of Silence' have appeared. As neither is online, here's a glimpse of what they said: ‘In my experience, highly gifted musicians often find it extremely difficult to articulate their ideas about music and reveal the secrets of their...
An exciting moment this afternoon: a friend called to say that he'd just read a review – the first one, in fact - of my new book in the Times Literary Supplement. I couldn’t find it online, so I ran down the road to the newsagent’s to buy a hard copy. Here’s a snippet...
A kind person at International Piano magazine has sent me, without comment, a copy of the May/June issue. It turns out to have a survey of recordings of Haydn’s ‘Gypsy Rondo’ piano trio. ‘The Florestan Trio … displays uncommon musical intelligence while refusing to...