Blog
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.
Risk assessments
The other day I was part of a coffee gathering where people from various lines of work were talking about their experiences of writing 'risk assessments'. They described the complicated forms that had to be filled in and the efforts to explain what preventive measures...
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FT Best Summer Books of 2024
My book on women pianists has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of their Best Summer Books of 2024. Music critic Richard Fairman made it one of his choices. It's very gratifying to find the book being noticed by a wider circle - I suppose because of the...
Wall Street Journal reviews my book
This weekend my book Women and the Piano is reviewed by Diane Cole in the Wall Street Journal. I don't think my books have ever come to the attention of the WSJ before, so I am delighted to be included. Only subscribers can read the full review, but this link at least...
Differing tastes
In the wake of the Trondheim competition, I’ve been thinking about the gap between the jury’s taste and the public’s taste in performers. Several times during the competition I happened to bump into members of the public in the coffee shop, or in the foyers of the...
Klee, Fournier, Atanassov Trios
Yesterday on the flight home from Norway, our flight crew announced that the airline had just installed free WiFi on certain planes, including ours. As I had a laptop with me I was able to send my first e-mail from the sky. Even more amazingly, a reply pinged straight...
Norwegian Salmon
It's hard to imagine getting blasé about smoked salmon, but I have nearly managed it here in Trondheim. At the hotel's generous breakfast buffet there's a special stand, known to us musicians as 'the salmon station', where you can get smoked and cured salmon of...
Trondheim trio competition
This week I'm on the jury of the Trondheim International Chamber Competition, which this year is for piano trios. During the day we've been listening to nine piano trios playing very demanding programmes, and in the evenings we've been rehearsing for and playing in...
’12 angry men’
In Trondheim in Norway, where the chamber music festival this week is featuring the music of Australian composer Brett Dean. Stylish posters advertise the concerts around town, playing on the titles of works being performed in the festival, or on events associated...
Styles of audience
Went to the Wigmore Hall to hear American jazz pianist Brad Mehdau in duo with mandolinist Chris Thile. It was a tremendous evening, and also an opportunity to witness quite a different sort of crowd in the Wigmore. They were, I have to admit, younger and cooler than...
At the Rye Festival
Usually I take part in music festivals, so to be invited to a Literary Festival is an exciting change. Yesterday I was at the Rye Festival talking about music and musicians. In between readings and bits of talk, I played little piano pieces. I'd been given one of...
High winds
Delayed for three hours today on a train journey from Edinburgh to London because of the high winds, apparently the tail-end of the hurricane which has now reached the UK from across the Atlantic. Just before leaving Edinburgh, we managed to climb Blackford Hill (see...
A sore finger
For the last month or so I’ve had a wart on the tip of my left index finger. A wart! I’ve never had one before. I think I had associated them with ghastly mediaeval illustrations, or fairytales in which unpleasant things get inflicted by magic on evil-doers. Anyway,...
Chop(in)sticks
At the weekend, several newspapers carried photos of thieves in China using chopsticks to pick people’s pockets as they browsed market stalls. The chopsticks are used essentially to make the thief’s fingers much longer and thinner – a sort of variant on the Edward...
Instrumental music in Italy
I’ve been in Italy for a few days. One evening I went to a concert in the courtyard of a lovely historic building in Bologna. The Italians are so lucky to have so many of these theatrical spaces and the climate which makes it possible to sit there, in the balmy air,...
Distractions
A friend was telling me about a piano recital he attended last year in the Wigmore Hall. During a Beethoven sonata, members of the audience were distracted by a low buzzing noise emanating from somewhere in the room, and judging by the pianist's increasingly cross...