I said I'd never play Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, but now I've...
Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto … it dogs the piano student throughout his or her life. Every conservatory practice room, every teacher's studio, every competition's final-round, rings with those...
View ArticleWhy did I meddle with Tchaikovsky's 2nd piano concerto?
I've been asked a number of times over the past couple of weeks by journalists and others about the three versions of the 2nd movement of the 2nd Tchaikovsky piano concerto on my recording with Osmo...
View ArticleWho are the most overrated composers?
I was talking to someone recently who claimed that Tchaikovsky was overrated. It's at moments like this when you realize how completely subjective music is. I can't prove to anyone that Tchaikovsky...
View ArticleSeattle: symphonic coffee and the occasional (in)consistency of Gay Communism
Water-fronted cities have an unfair aesthetic advantage. Is it because deep down we know that we need water as we need the sun? Or is it the sense of freedom water suggests – a push away from the...
View Article:-( not 2 C U in Berlin
Madame, Your gracious lines only reached me at the moment of my leaving Berlin, so that it was no longer possible for me to avail myself of the kind permission you were good enough to give me....
View ArticleRed light district IV – live or alive
I've written in earlier posts on this blog about recording with orchestras in the studio, and about recording alone in the studio. The other method I've used, on three different occasions, was...
View ArticleWhen you've gotta go: a urinary tract
Tchaikovsky did not commit suicide – I'm convinced of that, and we discussed it on this blog a while ago. But it appears he did not die of cholera either but rather of an infection resulting from...
View ArticleArtistic or merely acrobatic? The Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe's Swan Lake
This weekend I am going to another performance of Swan Lake. I've seen this ballet many times – even as recently as last week with the great Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House where they have...
View ArticleArms apart: practice tip no. 16
As I'm spending a lot of my time these days practising between Australian concerts, I thought I would return to the topic of practice tips. My last post on this subject was about rhythms. I used an...
View ArticleI'm in a wonderful mood: I think I'll write a funeral march
At the moment of creation it is essential that an artist should have complete calm. In this sense artistic creation, even musical creation, is always objective. People are wrong when they think that...
View ArticleThe most exciting musical discovery of my life: Tchaikovsky's wrong note...
Today I made one of the most exciting musical discoveries of my life. Through the Tchaikovsky Research website and their response to me on Twitter I was able to look at the manuscript of the first...
View ArticleSTOP PRESS: a different mistake but a more convincing solution in...
I wrote a post yesterday about my discovery of the manuscript of the first version of Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto and my excitement at the correction in blue pencil of a note which I have always...
View ArticleSacraments and the sugar plum fairy
"I saw both the Nutcracker ballet (for the first time) and Midsummer Night's Dream over the weekend. I was completely overwhelmed. We must cling to these artistic experiences and treasure them because...
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