A marriner’s tale

I have Sir Neville Marriner to thank for pointing me in the direction of the podium. It was in conversation after a long Academy of St Martin in the Fields tour of Germany in 2004 that Sir Neville fir

There comes a point in life for most of us when we say, enough. We say goodbye to responsibilities that had begun to feel more like obligations, and we either seek new challenges, or find joy in what

Maurice Ravel has been an enduring part of my world, both as a performer and teacher. As a little girl I played the Mouvement de menuet from his Sonatine at a piano competition, which the renowned pia

It was the Viennese critic Hermann Bahr who likened Mahler’s arrival in a hotel lobby to a gust of wind forcing open a window, or water bursting from a pipe. There’s something similarly elemental abou

Symphony No. 5; Swanwhite Suite etc Christian Tetzlaff (violin); Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon Ondine ODE 1468-2 77:16 mins One of the features of Finland’s impressive music educati

On Friday 18 July, at the hands of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Sakari Oramo, the BBC Proms will be launched into life with Bliss’s Birthday Fanfare for Sir Henry Wood – two minu