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I’ve been writing this blog since 2009, but there still seem to be plenty of interesting topics to mull over. You can subscribe (it’s free) to follow the blog by email – each new post will pop into your inbox.
50 Kingswomen photos now installed in their new home in the College
When I was in Cambridge recently I went to see the photos taken last year by photographer Jooney Woodward to mark fifty years of women undergraduates at King's College Cambridge. Last time I saw these photos, in June 2023, they were in the Chapel (I wrote about the...
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Mr Woods, a friend of Burns
The other day when I was a little early for a meeting I climbed the steps to the Old Calton Burial Ground (see photo) to go and look at the monument to the philosopher David Hume. It's a kind of empty stone cylinder into which the sunlight shines, and is always...
Smetana’s piano music and the use of ‘vibrato’
A little while ago I wrote something about a piano piece by Robert Schumann, in which he had instructed the player to play 'con accurezza' - with accuracy. It still seems an amusing little moment because of the questions it raises. I came across another such moment...
Mozart e-album goes live
My e-album of Mozart Sonatas for piano and violin, made with the wonderful Erich Höbarth, goes live today. You can buy it from CD Baby, and also from iTunes, Amazon, and lots of other download sites like Google Music Store, Shazam, Nokia, Rhapsody and MediaNet. You...
Saturday Classics
I'm going to the BBC tomorrow to record an episode of 'Saturday Classics', which I'm presenting on Saturday 11 May from 3-5pm on Radio 3. Each week a different presenter chooses two hours' worth of classical recordings and chats about their selections. The presenter...
‘Out of Silence’ available on Kindle
The Boydell Press writes to say that my book 'Out of Silence' is now available on Kindle. It seems to have leaped straight from hardback to Kindle without going through the paperback stage. Everything is changing! Details of the Kindle edition are here. I feel...
Cobbett Medal presentation
Here I am in Stationers' Hall, one of the beautiful old Guild Halls in the City of London, on the evening of the Cobbett Medal presentation. It was a slightly dreamlike experience, to be ushered into a solemn and formal room in which the 'Court' of the Worshipful...
Billy Mayerl and the Savoy Hotel
A chance encounter after a recent concert gave me the chance to visit the beautifully refurbished Savoy Hotel at the invitation of Jon Nickoll, the pianist in the famous American Bar. I've long wanted to visit the Savoy, where Billy Mayerl made his name as the young...
Mozart’s ‘lyrics’
I've been leaping boldly into the world of new media by uploading an audio file to one of the new online music distributors which helps artists to get their music directly to new audiences. (Details to follow when I've got to the end of the process). It's instrumental...
Herald arts news
A nice surprise this morning - my Cobbett Medal (to be presented next week at a dinner of the Worshipful Company of Musicians) is mentioned in the Herald newspaper. I was re-reading a chapter from my first book the other day, in preparation for yesterday's event at...
Reprint in Japan
I'm thrilled to hear that the Japanese version of my book 'Out of Silence', translated by Noriko Ogawa, is to be reprinted only nine months after its first publication. My editor in Tokyo, whose messages are always to be treasured, writes that 'Your book had put up a...
Fidelio in Vienna
We have been in snowy Vienna, where we were invited to hear a performance of Beethoven's opera 'Fidelio' in the very theatre where it was premiered (see photo). We were sitting right behind Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor. It was thrilling to be in the Theater an...
The soft-closing piano lid
I have had a delightful letter from a piano trio in Tokyo, asking for advice about how to perform Judith Weir's first Piano Trio. The work ends with the pianist banging shut the lid over the piano keyboard, dryly snapping everyone out of the realm of music and back...
Brahms’s early thoughts
Yesterday I gave some coaching to the Minerva Piano Trio, who had brought the first version of Brahms's B major Trio opus 8. He composed it around 1853-54, at the time when he first got to know the Schumanns, Clara and Robert. It's well known that he became very close...
The 2013 Cobbett Medal
Out of the blue has come a letter from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, telling me that I have been awarded the 2013 Walter Wilson Cobbett Medal for distinguished services to chamber music. WW Cobbett was a successful businessman whose true passion was chamber...