This may be a good thing in the long run, but it’s a curious change. When I was young and learning solo piano pieces to perform in public, my teachers thought it was obligatory to perform from memory. Anything less would give the impression that I hadn’t prepared properly. It was ‘sloppy’ to take the music on stage; adjudicators and critics would give you a black mark for it, and your fellow students would secretly despise you. Playing from memory felt like a moral imperative.

In itself, this was a change from a century earlier, when teachers like Clara Schumann discouraged her piano students from playing from memory, saying it would look as if they were showing off (and her view seems to have been typical of the time). We know that Beethoven didn’t like it when people played his piano sonatas from memory; he felt they would neglect to memorise all his detailed markings.

Since Clara Schumann’s day, we’ve had a century or so of wanting soloists to play from memory. But now, because of the advent of iPads and the like, the public seems to be losing the desire to see people play from memory.  Was it such a flimsy thing after all? Or will audiences get used to the sight of iPads on the music desk, and start wishing we’d leave them backstage?

OK to play from music if gadget involved is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Within the plantation is a truly gorgeous spot known as the Still Pond, where I took this rather Impressionisty photo of a mandarin duck posing on a tree-stump in the water.

The Still Pond is well named because, although lots of people gather up there to admire the azaleas, they usually keep quiet and just look. What can you say really?

The Still Pond is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I subscribe to the Guardian, look forward to reading it every day and love it to bits, but every year when they publish their guide to summer festivals, I could slap them. This year is no exception. In a 50-page guide to music festivals, there is one page at the back devoted to classical festivals. One!

It’s not as if there aren’t any to include. Rather it is, sadly, that many of them are ignored. I know that because for years I’ve been playing in some of them, lovely little summer festivals with great players and enthusiastic audiences. For twenty years I’ve been playing in the Gaudier Ensemble‘s annual festival in Cerne Abbas in Dorset, a chamber music festival of the highest quality, with players drawn from all over Europe. I’m not aware it has ever been mentioned in the Guide. I mention it not to promote it above other festivals but just to use it as an example of one of many which deserve recognition.

Every year the Festival Guide name-checks a few established UK festivals such as the Proms, Aldeburgh, Glyndebourne, Bath, Cheltenham, Garsington. In other genres – pop and rock – they seem to go to some trouble to round up the adventurous, the remote, the zany, the farm festivals, the start-ups and the independents. But not in classical music, even though there are plenty of them in remote or unexpected places as well. The guide has sections devoted to big festivals, boutique festivals, day festivals, dance festivals, city festivals, folk and world festivals, European festivals, Family festivals, Jazz, Blues and Soul festivals – but it turns out that they all feature music other than classical. Only the back page is for ‘classical’.  I can only think it’s a deliberate policy, and when I think of the meetings at which that policy is decided, I feel afraid.

The Guardian Guide to Festivals is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Read my review of his book here. It’s published in the Arts and Books section of Saturday’s Independent.

‘Reinventing Bach’ by Paul Elie is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

It’s daunting, because I already feel I’m drowning in email. But the younger generation keeps telling me I really should bite the bullet and join Twitter. According to them, ‘no-one’ ever sees what I write on my website because I don’t tweet about it. That makes me sad. So I’m going to have a go.

If you’re on Twitter, please ‘follow’ me!

I have joined Twitter is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Click here for more information about the programme on the Radio 3 website.

On the same day, Saturday 11 May, you can read a review I’ve written for The Independent of Paul Elie’s book, ‘Reinventing Bach’,  about how Bach has found a new lease of life in the age of iPods and gadgets which allow people to lead their daily lives to the accompaniment of their favourite music.

Saturday Classics on Radio 3 this weekend is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

You’ll hear a short excerpt from the first movement of Mozart’s D major sonata K306. While you listen, you’ll see pictures of Perth, the concert hall, the countryside around, and the musicians. Some of the photos, such as the one on the album cover, were taken by Erich Höbarth. Under the video, there’s more information about the recording and how to buy it from CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon etc. You can also click straight through to CD Baby by using the ‘Buy Album’ button on the left-hand side of this home page.

YouTube video is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

My e-album of Mozart Sonatas for piano and violin, made with the wonderful Erich Höbarth, goes live today. You can buy it from CD Baby, and also from iTunes, Amazon, and lots of other download sites like Google Music Store, Shazam, Nokia, Rhapsody and MediaNet.

You can hear a sample on YouTube and see some of Erich’s photos of Perth.

When Erich and I played our Mozart series in Perth in 2011-12, our concerts were recorded live. We realised afterwards that these recordings shouldn’t just disappear into some archive. They seemed to capture the happy spirit of the occasion. We decided to present them just as they are, not edited in any way. They are true ‘live recordings’.

There are three sonatas on our first e-album: K306 in D major, K481 in E flat major, and K526 in A major. You can buy them track by track, or all together as an album. They are not available as physical CDs.

You can also hear us playing two of those sonatas live in the Wigmore Hall on Sunday June 23 at 7.30pm.

We need help in making people aware of the album, so please spread the word!

Mozart e-album goes live is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Easier said than done, of course. Writing the script took ages, because a light touch is an art in itself. Anyway, it’s done. I printed it out and made myself read it aloud for timings and so on.

I know that a radio script should sound as much like ordinary speech as possible. Literary prose isn’t helpful. I also know I should just try to visualise myself speaking to a friend, and act naturally. But it’s so difficult to do!  Just as when you record a messge for your answering-machine, when you read a script aloud you’re gripped by an inexplicable desire to do something different than what you normally do when you speak. Suddenly you speak at a higher pitch, or a lower one. You pause in unusual places. You emphasise words for no apparent reason. Your throat gets dry and you swallow noisily.

What seems to work best for me is to look away from the script and speak from memory. It’s not easy, though, when you’re alone in a studio with headphones on, a green light on the table in front of you, and a team supervising your efforts from the next studio, trying not to put you off by staring at you through the tinted glass window.

Saturday Classics is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The Boydell Press writes to say that my book ‘Out of Silence’ is now available on Kindle. It seems to have leaped straight from hardback to Kindle without going through the paperback stage. Everything is changing!

Details of the Kindle edition are here.

I feel slightly like the tortoise being overtaken by the hare, as I don’t own a Kindle and have never read a book on one. But never mind! Perhaps there will be a whole new audience for the book.

‘Out of Silence’ available on Kindle is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

It was a slightly dreamlike experience, to be ushered into a solemn and formal room in which the ‘Court’ of the Worshipful Company of Musicians was gathered, each person in robes, furs and chains of office as appropriate. The members of the Court were arrayed around three sides of the room. They stood and applauded while a beadle, complete with sceptre, led me across the room to where the Master of the Company was waiting at the far end to present the medal.

He said a few kind words and I replied with a few words of thanks, but as is usual for me on such occasions, I found afterwards that I had almost no recollection of what was said. The sense of ceremony made everything feel unreal – agreeably unreal, but hard to grasp. It was a little like suddenly finding oneself flung into the middle of a scene in The Magic Flute.

Cobbett Medal presentation is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

Mayerl’s own piano music has been such a long-running strand of my repertoire that I’ve come to feel quite close to him, and have often tried to imagine what it was like to play for the glamorous patrons of the Savoy almost a century ago.

Thanks to Jon Nickoll I was shown round the rooms where the Havana Band and the Savoy Orpheans played: the Lancaster Ballroom, a gorgeous vision in pale blue and white (see photo), and the Beaufort Room, now remodelled but still recognisable from historical photos. We peeped behind curtains to see the backstage areas where the musicians would have assembled, and we patrolled the corridors Mayerl would have used to reach the rooms where he played. Jon also very kindly arranged for Bob and me to have a cocktail in the American Bar while we listened to his elegant playing and singing (all done from memory). We loved the atmosphere of the American Bar and felt we could easily get used to such luxury.

It seems that the memory of Billy Mayerl is somewhat faded in the place where he caused such a stir in the 1920s. Even in the  ‘Savoy Museum’ there is no reference to him, or none that I saw. There are photos of the famous bands, but not with Mayerl at the piano. There were old 78rpm records in a glass case, but his name wasn’t mentioned there either. When I think how much people still love his sparkling music, I wish his name could be celebrated at the Savoy.

Billy Mayerl and the Savoy Hotel is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

It’s instrumental music by Mozart and I was very amused to be asked to declare whether the lyrics were ‘explicit’ or ‘clean’. Everything now is classified as a ‘song’. There was no option for ‘no lyrics’, and it was impossible to advance to the next step in the process without divulging what sort of lyrics Mozart had written for each track. So I had to go through, identifying each track as ‘clean’.

Mozart didn’t write any lyrics for his instrumental music, of course, but as I laboriously ticked boxes I amused myself by wondering what lyrics he might have added had the thought occurred to him. He was famous for his naughty sense of humour and for his occasional references to bodily functions.  I must admit that in lessons and coaching sessions, students and I sometimes try to fit words to his music, or to particular phrases in the music. It’s often very illuminating to try to be a little more specific about the mood or ‘story’ that music is telling us; it gives new ideas about timing and tone colour. And of course the words that people instinctively put to music are often concerned with love, longing, regret and all the rest of it. So if we’re talking about imaginary lyrics for Mozart’s music, it’s not all that obvious which box we’d have to tick.

Mozart’s ‘lyrics’ is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I was re-reading a chapter from my first book the other day, in preparation for yesterday’s event at the Anglo-Japanese Foundation. Writing about a tour of Japan in 2000, I’d mentioned that a review of one of our concerts had been published in Japanese on the internet, seen by a Japanese friend in Amsterdam, translated by her and emailed to us while we were still in Osaka. At the time this seemed a miraculous turn of speed. I commented in the book that ‘soon it won’t matter if newspapers come to review our concerts or not – the Internet will reach more people’. That remark was made only a decade ago, yet already it seems like an observation from another era. And I note the rather poignant capital ‘I’ that my editor asked me to use on the word Internet, as though we felt slightly uncomfortable with the term. Only ten years later we take it for granted that news and information can reach us instantly, wherever we are.

You can listen to a podcast of yesterday’s discussion between Noriko Ogawa, Robert Philip and me at the Anglo-Japanese foundation on their website

Herald arts news is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

My editor in Tokyo, whose messages are always to be treasured, writes that ‘Your book had put up a very good fight in this serious economic situation of Japanese publishing world.’ Which makes the news of the reprint even more enjoyable.

Noriko Ogawa and I will be discussing life as a classical musician in Japan and the UK on Thursday 4 April from 6-8pm at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in London. The Daiwa Foundation is dedicated to nurturing links between England and Japan. Our event is free to attend – though because space is limited, you have to register your name beforehand. Noriko and I will be interviewed by Robert Philip; there will be an opportunity for members of the audience to ask questions, and finally to meet us over a glass of wine. Click here for more info and a booking form.

Reprint in Japan is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

The producer had made a curious decision in the final act, where Florestan and Leonora along with the other prisoners are saved by the arrival of a government minister bringing news of reprieve. In this production, the whole scene was re-imagined as a modern oratorio performance. Instead of the government minister, there was ‘Beethoven’, a singer dressed as we recognise the composer from some famous portraits. He sang the minister’s words, but ‘as Beethoven’, appearing as a figure from history, presiding over the cast in their modern dress, the chorus now standing in rows and the main characters in smart black cocktail dresses and suits in a row at the front. Clearly the idea was to break off from the ‘story’ and present the final scene as a kind of moralising on tyranny and freedom. But although we could see the intellectual point, it had the curious effect of lopping off the end of Leonora and Florestan’s story, making us feel we hadn’t actually seen their deliverance.

Our visit coincided with the coldest Easter in Vienna for 130 years. On one day the temperature dropped to minus 4 degrees during the morning. It was painfully cold, so cold that we couldn’t bear to stand still in the street and look at the map.

Fidelio in Vienna is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

My friends in Japan report that they are struggling with this final gesture, because modern Japanese pianos have a soft-close mechanism preventing the lid from falling down over the keyboard. Instead, if you dislodge the lid or even tug on it, it closes with a graceful ritardando and the merest hint of a sigh. This mechanism has, no doubt, prevented many a little hand from being injured during piano practice. But it makes Judith Weir’s startling effect impossible.

I asked Judith what she would advise. She replied that the gesture should be decisive and surprising, and that perhaps the pianist, or all three of the players, could invent their own gesture which would have the desired effect. She suggested that for example the pianist might slap the piece of wood to the right of the piano keys, perhaps with both palms. Judith and I were both intrigued by this new problem because we have not yet come across the soft-close piano lid. The keyboard lid on my own piano clonks shut as merrily as you like.

Bob suggested – humorously, I hasten to add – that the pianist could leap to her feet and, with a lightning karate chop, sweep aside the stick holding up the main lid of the grand piano. The dramatic effect might be equalled only by the sight of ambulance crews rushing in to revive listeners who had fainted with shock.

The soft-closing piano lid is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

I was rather ashamed to find that I hardly knew the earlier version. My interest in it was driven out by a very poor performance I heard some years ago, which led me to conclude (wrongly) that it was not worth further investigation.

However, yesterday a good performance revealed many lovely things in the score, and even the weaknesses seemed rather touching. The musicians explained that Brahms had incorporated several references to unrequited love in his early version. For instance, there are long quotes from Beethoven’s song cycle ‘An die ferne Geliebte’ (‘to the distant beloved’) and from one of Schubert’s late songs about unrequited love. These were in fact some of the most striking passages. But they were completely cut from the later version, as though the older Brahms wanted to remove any clues to his youthful feelings about Clara.

One of the performers told me that although the later version is the famous one, the one we all have in our ears, he finds that if a bit of the Trio comes to mind in a quiet moment, it is usually something from the youthful version.

Brahms’s early thoughts is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

WW Cobbett was a successful businessman whose true passion was chamber music. Groves’ Dictionary observed that he ‘gave to commerce what time he could spare from music’. His book, Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, is still a classic. In 1924 he established an endowment to enable the Worshipful Company of Musicians to present the Cobbett Medal annually.

With my letter was a list of previous winners who included Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Dame Myra Hess, Gerald Moore, the members of the Amadeus Quartet, and many other fine musicians – composers, performers, animateurs, educators – who have contributed to the well-being of chamber music.  I feel very honoured indeed.

The 2013 Cobbett Medal is to be presented at a dinner in Stationers’ Hall in the City of London in April.

The 2013 Cobbett Medal is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog

On the morning of Saturday 23 Feb I’m giving a three-hour masterclass for music students of the college – piano and chamber music. All the details are here and on these tiny leaflets.

Residency at King’s College, Cambridge is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer blog