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.
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...
Search the Blog
Get The Latest Posts
Interested in what Susan has to say about all things classical music? Subscribe below and whenever Susan writes a new blog post you will be notified by email. Simple!
A podcast for the ‘Brainland’ series
I have done an interview for the 'Brainland' podcast, a series 'where neuroscience, the arts and humanities mingle'. An old college friend, doctor and cellist Steve Brown, interviewed me about how I got started in music, how I got into chamber music, what motivates...
Edinburgh Book Festival programme announced
The Edinburgh Book Festival has just announced its programme for this summer. I will be taking part on Sunday 11 August at 6.45pm, talking to Kate Molleson about my book Women and the Piano. I'm delighted to be included in this very popular festival. This year the...
Roses and thorns
Roses have started to bloom in the garden. There's an old rosebush which has been living here for longer than I have. Its roses are pale pink, but this year for the first time the petals are tinged with the faintest gold. Maybe the weather is different this year, or...
Driving away troublemakers
There's another press report on classical music being used to drive troublesome teenagers away from local shops, this time with a twist. The Co-op store in an Aberdeen suburb has been broadcasting a classical playlist at the front of its shop as a 'deterrent'. But...
Jarred by canned music
Just back from a successful trip to the Echternach Festival in Luxembourg. We played in a very pretty but wildly over-resonant church whose acoustics were only somewhat subdued by the presence of the audience. During the rehearsal, when the church was empty, we...
Link to Guardian article
A couple of people have mentioned that they couldn't immediately find my Guardian article online yesterday, and have suggested I give a direct link. Here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/05/florestan-trio-beethoven-second
Entering into the role
One of the pieces we're playing in Luxembourg tonight is a piano trio arrangement of Janacek's first string quartet, known as ‘The Kreutzer Sonata' after a short story by Tolstoy. The story recounts how the narrator becomes jealous of his wife after she forms a...
Guardian article tomorrow
I've written an article for The Guardian, due to be published tomorrow (Friday 5 June) in the Film and Music supplement. It's about the trio's festival plans to perform Beethoven's Second Symphony in the composer's arrangement for piano trio. This year there are...
Transfer Fees
Over breakfast this morning I heard the sports announcer say that footballer Roberto Kaka is to join Real Madrid for a record-breaking transfer fee of £56 million. This sum is quite apart from the player's own prospective earnings, reputed to be in the region of...
Flowering on one day only
The new little convolvulus plant in our garden has just flowered for the first time. Its six delicate purple flowers will be gone by the end of the day. Bob says there should be new flowers tomorrow. We bought the convolvulus plant in homage to a wonderful sight in...
‘I don’t hear anything’
Today I've been rehearsing a quintet for piano and strings with some very fine players using some very fine old Italian string instruments. I'm never sure if it's good to say who owns what, so I'll just say that these top-league instruments sounded incredible. One of...
Gold grasshoppers
My whole day has been brightened by a lovely thing my daughter told me. She is studying Classics at university and has been reading the Greek historian Thucydides. Writing in the 5th century BC about ‘the ancients', Thucydides described some of their customs. When he...
Non-sensible
A friend writes to say that she has been pondering my remarks on Nonfiction and Fiction because of something that recently happened when she was filling in a job application. On the form, she was asked to describe herself as either ‘disabled' or ‘non-disabled'....
A mosaic of tiny pages
I've been putting together a special performing score of my Haydn piano concerto for the Florestan Festival. I'm going to be directing the performance ‘from the keyboard', and I don't want to have too many pages to turn. There's so much else going on in the festival -...