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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.
Competitions then and now
I've been watching the BBC Young Musician competition on television for many years now. Slowly, the competition has slipped from the major channels and is now shown on BBC4, whose output currently seems to consist of repeats, archive material and cultural things that...
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‘Con accuratezza’
Tomorrow I'm playing a solo recital at the Lammermuir Festival, a lovely festival which takes place in various locations, sacred and secular, across the beautiful county of East Lothian in Scotland. I have practised my programme to the point of feeling a keen desire...
The Pianoforte Recital – then and now
The other day I came across an article called 'The Pianoforte Recital'. It was published in The Musical Times in 1911 - over a century ago. The author, Frederick Kitchener (himself a pianist), complained that piano recitals had become far too numerous, and that...
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 -...
Ducklings
We were walking through Richmond Park, discussing various members of the younger generation and their current dilemmas. Should they change their jobs, travel the world, leave this partner or get together with that one? Will the pursuit of their dreams enable them to...
Calorie Gallery
Eat your heart out, pointlessly thin people, for this is a photo of the birthday cake Bob made for me yesterday. Two layers of chewy hazelnut meringue filled with double cream and fresh raspberries. A thing of beauty and a joy forever!
Legions of fans
I spent a long tube journey today reading the newspaper articles and special supplements about tonight's Champions' League Final football match between Manchester United and Barcelona. I'm not much of a sports fan, but anything can become interesting once you take the...