‘mine wasn’t the archetypal musician’s tortured childhood, playing nothing but scales and etudes

Norman Lebrecht on Music HE WORKED SO ...

When you’re speaking to someone devastatingly fluent in four tongues (Italian, German, French and English) the subject of language naturally leads to some curiosity. Especially from a somewhat green-e

Ask if national schools of piano really do exist, and one might be tempted to reply that there are only as many schools as there are pianists. Yet, the idea of a distinctive musical heritage, preserve

THE INSIDE TRACK

The mayor of Fort Worth officially renamed it Piano City for the three-week duration of the Van Cliburn competition in June. A slick piece of marketing, you might think. When I arrived for the week-lo

For 172 years, Steinway & Sons has been producing the world’s finest pianos and for 150 of them there’s been a Steinway centre in London, called Steinway Hall; the second such following the opening of