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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.
Background music that won’t stay in the background
We went out for lunch yesterday to celebrate the publication of the paperback of Bob's book A Little History of Music. Here's to a whole new bunch of readers! Everything in the restaurant was nice except for the music playing in the background. It was a dreary, drifty...
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Growing up without live music
Recently I visited my old college in Cambridge to give a recital. While I was there, I took the opportunity to attend two services of Evensong in the college chapel. As always, hearing sacred music sung in those glorious surroundings (see photo) was a striking...
Admiring swallows on either side of their migration routes
We often walk up past a farm in the Braid Hills where swallows gather each year to make their nests and raise their young. Usually the birds arrive in early May, and until they leave in August for their journey to Africa, we visit the farm regularly to see how they're...
Frost on the roses
Despite the cold weather, there are still red roses blooming in the garden. But today when I looked out, there was frost on their petals. Somehow the sight of frost on the roses was poignant.
A morning with Goritzki
Went to a marvellous cello masterclass given by Johannes Goritzki at the Royal College of Music. He spent hours persuading the students that playing the cello was easier than they thought, just a matter of applying weight in the right place, not working against the...
Asymmetrical viola
Here's something I hadn't seen before: an asymmetrical viola. Its owner, Rivka Golani, showed it to us when Bob interviewed her for Putney Music society this week. Rivka explained that the maker of the viola, Otto Erdesz, believed that the unusual cut-out on the...
The meaning of sparseness
At ChamberStudio yesterday we were working on a piece by Prokofiev. We were discussing the kind of piano writing that's often found in works by Russian composers of the Soviet era. As the writing is typically rather spare and empty-looking on the page, with a...
Tailoring
I was teaching at the Guildhall today. All the students were excellent – that didn’t surprise me, because I know what a high standard there is at London’s big music colleges these days. Not one of my students was British – that didn’t surprise me either. What did...
Single crisps
It's been a week for funny signs in shops. A friend texted me from the station to report seeing a sign in a Marks and Spencer's Food store: 'Takeaway bananas'. We have been musing over the idea of a non-take-away banana. Meanwhile, down by the nuts and snacks in our...
Guildhall masterclass on Thursday
This Thursday morning, 11 November, from 10am-1pm in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, I'm giving a masterclass in 'the art of piano chamber music', working with chamber groups from the Guildhall. The class will be in the Music Hall. The event is free and open...
Improvisation
We were listening to a jazz station on the radio as we cooked dinner. A saxophone player meandered interminably through a long dull solo without ever finding a way to extricate himself. It was like listening to a fly struggling in a spoonful of honey. Bob went over...
Washing symbols
In our local department store today, I was looking at the autumn collection of clothes. A young sales assistant in her twenties stepped forward to help me when she saw me studying a particular pair of wool trousers. I asked her if they were washable. 'I wouldn't...
Egyptian friezes unfrozen
To Sadler’s Wells to see the Tanztheater Wuppertal, Pina Bausch’s dance company. Sadly I never saw them while Pina Bausch was still alive (she died last year). The audience was packed with dancers, or at least that was how I interpreted the fact that there were so...
An extra hour in bed
The clocks went back last night, and we all had an extra hour in bed. This should have been ideal at the end of a day of recording Shostakovich. Recording is an arduous process and I was looking forward to relaxing when it was all over. But could I take advantage of...
Completing our Shostakovich CD
This weekend, the Florestan Trio is recording the first piano trio by Shostakovich, a student work of the composer's. We're adding it to a Shostakovich disc which we recorded a little while ago, and the whole CD will come out in the New Year on the Hyperion label. On...