There’s a review of my new book in today’s Guardian. Here’s an excerpt:

‘Fascinating essays from the celebrated pianist … Susan Tomes has devoted her career largely to chamber music – a niche market within the niche market of classical music, and one in which she has achieved a singularly high reputation as an executive musician.

‘…Her professional focus has been the classical duo and chamber repertory, and she has been inspired by some remarkable people, among them the Hungarian violinist and teacher Sandor Vegh, whom she first encountered at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove in Cornwall in the late 1970s, and whom she remembers with a mixture of humour and deep affection in “Old People”.

‘Her title refers to an ancient Greek practice whereby individuals would sleep in temples to incubate dreams and so help them to interpret life. For Tomes, it has been Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert who have provided the sacred texts whose “individual notes can feel like words of truth”, yet in this wide-ranging collection she considers in some depth not only matters of pianism and artistic interpretation but also the practical issues, large and small, that performing musicians grapple with every day of their working lives.’ Guardian, 10 Jan 2015