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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.
Tricky fingering resolves itself
I've been gradually playing through the whole volume of Mozart piano sonatas, and the other day I reached the B flat Sonata, K333. This piece holds unpleasant memories for me because when I was doing my O-levels, or Highers, I forget which, I had to perform some of it...
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Back story? A new weapon in career-building
A new series of Channel 4's 'The Piano' has begun. Judge Mika is still there, but Lang Lang has left the show and in his place is the multi-talented American musician Jon Batiste. For anyone who isn't familiar with the show, this is the concept: an upright piano is...
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...
Not telling a story
This morning I was coaching a very nice piano trio. We were talking about those ‘abstract’ works of Beethoven where the composer builds his material out of little musical ‘cells’ rather than obvious melodies and counter-melodies. Such works are sometimes more...
Russian Crescendo
We enjoyed listening on television to Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto played at the Proms by the excellent pianist Simon Trpceski. It’s strange how those famous themes, which once sounded slightly hackneyed to me, no longer seem that way and instead sound full of...
The Proms: live v. televised
We went to the First Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall on Friday. Thanks to kind friends who invited us, we had wonderful seats and good company. The Albert Hall was packed full of enthusiastic listeners plus the 500 performers needed for Mahler's Eighth...
Independent review of new music books
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.
Win a free copy of Out of Silence
BBC Music Magazine is giving away eight copies of my book 'Out of Silence'. To enter the draw, all you have to do is answer the question: of which trio is Susan Tomes the pianist? The answer's easy to find on this website. The draw closes on the 9th August, so if...
The Oldie magazine review
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...
So few notes
A lovely moment during the BBC radio programme 'Desert Island Discs' with 90-year-old Dame Fanny Waterman, founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition. Dame Fanny recalled an evening some decades ago when the composer and pianist Benjamin Britten was in her...
Aging rockers
An uncomfortable experience watching a TV programme about ‘aging rockers’. Rock musicians were interviewed about the experience of growing older, especially in the light of the fact that their teenage lyrics were dismissive of this possibility. I cringed through a...
International Piano magazine review
Out of Silence has been reviewed by Julian Haylock in the July/August issue of International Piano magazine. The review is not online, so here's a glimpse: 'It is remarkable just how much Tomes manages to find illumination in things that may initially appear musically...
Not ‘all in this together’
I went to a lunchtime concert in the City of London, the district where many bank headquarters are. It’s an area I don’t often visit. As I was early, I walked around the streets for a while. They were thronged with incredibly affluent-looking suntanned bankers in...
Musical Recipes
Our much-used copy of Claudia Roden’s ‘Book of Middle Eastern Food’ has finally fallen apart, and we’ve bought a new, updated copy. In its honour, Bob made some lovely pastries filled with spinach, aubergine and onion with various cheeses, and a tabouli bursting with...
The classical music of the sports world?
The other night, Lindsay Davenport and John McEnroe were discussing on BBC TV the poor results of British tennis players in the opening round of this year’s Wimbledon Championships. They agreed that it’s tough at the moment, and not only in Britain, to develop a...