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.
‘Search for a way to make it natural’
The other day I was listening to a pianist playing the fearsome second movement of the César Franch Sonata for violin and piano. The piano part is highly virtuosic and, apart from anything else, a very good proof of the fact that these big piano parts are not...
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Music and longevity
I go to quite a lot of concerts given by amateur musicians - partly because there's a big amateur music scene in the city where I live, and partly because I often have friends and neighbours playing in the concerts. Of course my particular interest is piano. It dawned...
Women of older generations
By chance, two different people have spoken to me recently about their late mothers, who experienced difficulties in following their chosen career when they were young. One of those women was born in the 1920s, the other in the 1930s. One was a doctor, the other a...
Study of ancient writing
A one-line letter of mine is in today’s Guardian (click here to read it; it’s the third one down). I sent it last week, straight after reading that the UK's last-remaining professorship of palaeography was to be axed, and then forgot about it until it popped up...
Snowdrops in the snow
British winters have been so mild in recent years that I had almost forgotten why snowdrops are so called. But here they are in our garden, living up to their name. Our poor snowdrops are doubly challenged at the moment because if it's not snow knocking them down,...
New book extract
My publisher, Boydell Press, has put a short extract from my new book Out of Silence on their blog. You can read it by clicking here. The blog also shows the book's cover image for the first time. I'm irrationally proud of this cover because I took the photograph! It...
Masterclass weekend
A moment during my weekend of masterclasses, which finished last night with a delightful concert by the participants. It was a most enjoyable experience to work so intensively with six young professional pianists, and two fine young string players, violinist Sulki Yu...
Voice of experience
More in the press today about how older women TV presenters are sidelined. It seems that not only women over sixty, but even women over forty start to become ‘invisible’, or at any rate unviewable. By this yardstick I must be well on my way to disappearing like the...
A discussion between equals?
I’m starting to look forward to my piano masterclasses this weekend. Six young professional pianists are going to be my students. I’ve always hesitated to say ‘students’ ever since a friend came to listen to the masterclasses at Prussia Cove and commented afterwards...
Bob’s preserve(s)
Bob has just made his fourth batch of marmalade this month, using Seville oranges which are only available in January. Batch 1 had to be thrown away when he got engrossed in some editing work and left the boiling marmalade to caramelise. Batch 2 was an unusual recipe...
Phalacrocorax aristotelis
The parade of unusual bird visitors continues. The other day, in our local park, we saw half a dozen large cormorants, or perhaps shags, sitting on a wooden platform in the middle of the lake. Surely cormorants are seabirds, found on rocky cliffs? But there they were...
Boulangerie poetry
In the bread section of the supermarket I was startled to see a tall baguette labelled ‘Pain Flute’. I was reading in English and thought the store’s labelling team had gone all poetical on a dark winter’s afternoon. Isn’t there a poem by Tagore which talks about the...
‘Meet the Artist’
There's a little interview with me in the 'Meet the Artist' series on BBC Music Magazine's website. It focuses on the masterclass weekend I'm teaching in February. As is usually the way, the interviewer hasn't chosen the bits of the interview I would have chosen...
Heard Melodies
Out of the Saturday Guardian fell a slim booklet about Keats, the first in a series about Romantic Poets. It fell open at Keats' ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’. My eye fell on the lines, ‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard//Are sweeter’ I read this line aloud to Bob....
A friendly visitor
The winter weather has brought some unusual birds to our garden. A week or so ago we had a little flock of birds about the size of thrushes, but more colourful, with orangey plumage on their necks and chests. At around the same time the Guardian mentioned that its...