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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.
Listening bars
In today's Guardian I was reading about the Japanese tradition of 'listening bars', where customers have 'a deep, beautiful, reverential attitude to listening to music'. High-end sound systems, sometimes dominating a whole wall, convey every layer of a recorded album...
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Looking over the list of books I read this year
On the last day of the year I have been looking through the list of books I read during the year. This year I seem to have read 36 books. I used to read books from the library, but the pandemic (when libraries were closed for ages) trained me out of that habit, and...
‘Women and the Piano’ wins a Presto Music award
At last night's Presto Music Awards, my book Women and the Piano was a Book of the Year. I'm very happy to have this recognition of a book that means a lot to me. Thanks again to Yale University Press for commissioning it.
Silence in the Press (again)
Last week my trio played two concerts in Wigmore Hall, one of the world's premier venues for chamber music. Both concerts were sold out, with people standing at the back and people being turned away at the box office. Yet there was not a single review in any...
The Stradivarius of Wine Glasses
Passing the time between a rehearsal and a concert, Bob and I walk along Wigmore Street. We spot a shop selling all kinds of accessories to do with wine drinking. We pop in for some vacuum corks. Inside the shop is a display of luxurious wine glasses: hand-blown,...
Unsweet Dreams
This morning my trio had a Coffee Concert at the Wigmore Hall. It meant being in central London at 9am for our rehearsal, so last night I went to bed quite early, in the hope of being well rested. But this strategy rarely works, and as well as sleeping badly, I had...
Hushed by beauty
Bob and I stopped work a bit early and drove to Richmond Park to walk in the Isabella Plantation, a large enclosed garden within the park. The first time I ever saw the Isabella Plantation in springtime, someone had tipped me off that I shouldn't miss the sight of it...
Upon Westminster Bridge
The BBC's poetry season included a sweet programme last night about Wordsworth's poem ‘Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge'. Presenter and poet Owen Sheers shared his lovely insight that the poem has become more, not less resonant over the years. The surprise of...
Pulses racing in Shostakovich
In my work as a classical performer, nothing beats the feeling of playing to a sold-out Wigmore Hall, with people standing at the back. That was my trio's fortunate experience in London last night. I had invited a friend who doesn't often go to concerts of this type....
Vanishing Bowl
A few days ago I wrote about our cat dragging her water bowl around the kitchen floor. It's a topic I never thought I would mention again. However, last night when we were giving the cat a bit of supper, we suddenly noticed that her pottery drinking bowl had gone. It...
Live on BBC radio this evening
If anyone would like to hear the Florestan Trio playing live on radio and chatting about its Wigmore Hall concerts this week, we'll be on BBC Radio 3's drive-time programme, In Tune, this evening between about 6.15-6.45pm. We'll be playing Beethoven, Shostakovich and...
Haydn among the asparagus
Up at 6am to fly to Frankfurt and then on by road to the Schwetzingen Festival, where my trio is opening a series of concerts celebrating Haydn's wonderful piano trios. Arriving suddenly in Schwetzingen on a Sunday lunchtime makes me realise that I carry my London...
Trio Masterclasses
My trio has just spent two days giving masterclasses to three excellent postgraduate piano trios: the Trio Duecento Corde from Hungary, the Pescatori Trio from Germany, and the Van Halsema Trio who are currently based in London. Each year, the standard of playing...
Dragging her bowl
Our tortoiseshell cat Tashi, now nearly 14 years old, has taken to dragging her water bowl around on the wooden floor of the kitchen. From a nearby room we'd occasionally hear a strange, effortful scraping sound from the direction of the kitchen, as though a small...
A Bengali Romeo
We went to the Tara Arts Centre in Wandsworth to see ‘People's Romeo', a delightful cross-cultural production re-telling Shakespeare's ‘Romeo and Juliet' in a simplified form, as might be used by travelling actors in a Bengali market-place. The performance took place...