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.
Giving feedback at competitions
At the competition in Munich last week (I was on the jury) I encountered a very modern problem. The way the competition was run was similar to most of the other competitions I've been involved with: at the end of each round, the results were announced. Those who were...
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Disappearing piano tuners
There was an article in The Guardian this week about the dwindling number of highly-trained piano tuners in Australia. Not only is the pool of piano tuners getting smaller, it is in danger of not being replenished because there aren't enough training courses in this...
Hyperion Records now available on streaming platforms
Hyperion Records, which was recently bought by Universal, has decided to make its catalogue of recordings available on streaming platforms for the first time. The first batch of 200 Hyperion recordings has just gone up on Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes and so on. As the...
No Connection
Richmond Park this morning offered many examples of a discouraging sight which is fast becoming familiar in the parks round here: of dog-walkers absorbed in conversations on their mobile phones, while their dogs trail meekly behind them. Are we really still a nation...
Sensitivity
I’ve just realised that this is my hundredth blog post on this website. I am a centenarian! To celebrate, here’s a sweet story I heard from Mark Morris when I attended his question-and-answer session the other night at Sadler’s Wells. He was complaining about someone...
Transport from tee to green
Yesterday I was astounded to hear a golfer talking on the radio about the current trend whereby competitors in golf championships are ferried from tee to green in little buggies. When asked whether it was really so hard to walk that short distance, the golfer replied...
New Tracks
One of the professors at the RSAMD said a very interesting thing when I was there the other day. We were talking about the difference that the existence of recordings has made to learning new works. He said that it's quite common for his students to come to their...
Lid closes on Kemble Pianos
Kemble Pianos, the UK's last piano manufacturing firm, closed today. Read my comments in today's Guardian arts blog here.
Meeting one of my heroes
Even in the dark and without his lipstick-pink pashmina, I recognised choreographer Mark Morris standing chatting with two friends outside Sadler’s Wells Theatre an hour before his show last night. It wasn’t like bumping into Diaghilev: Morris was dressed in old...
Love-hate relationships
Fascinating article in today’s Guardian about the hidden antagonism which some top sportsmen feel, or come to feel, towards their chosen sport. It seems they’re reluctant to voice such feelings because they know the general public regards them as fortunate beyond...
Quartet Heaven
We had dinner last night with a friend who plays professionally in a string quartet. He’d been coaching a young string quartet from Paris. They got to talking about rehearsal venues, always a vexing problem for chamber groups and one that I and my friends have never...
Dancing at altitude
No dancer myself, I nevertheless love to watch good dancers, especially if they are musical. That may seem an odd qualification to make about dancers, but it often seems to me that the rhythm of the music and the steps of the dance are on parallel tracks. Because my...
Rainbow over Edinburgh
Well, I wasn't sitting in an empty room, but I can't pretend that my discussion session in Glasgow was a great success. Had it not been for several members of the teaching faculty coming to my rescue, it would have been a rather silent room. My masterclass was most...
Talking about performance
In the past few days I’ve spent some time studying scores of pieces I’m going to be teaching in a masterclass at the RSAMD this week. The date has been in my diary for a long time, but because the academic year only began a couple of weeks ago, it was impossible to...
‘Alison’s House’
It’s a double-edged feeling when you come across something superb by someone you’ve never heard of. Happy to discover them, but sad that they seem to have fallen through the net of history. That’s how we felt on seeing ‘Alison’s House’, by the American playwright...