Steven Isserlis

So Ivry Gitlis is gone, at the age of 98. To say that he was a ‘character’, who will be greatly missed, would be a ridiculous under-statement… Read more…

A couple of nights ago, someone asked me how students should react to advice from their teachers. I had to think a bit before replying; but my rather basic answer was that they should listen respectfully, ask questions if necessary – and then go and think about it, and decide whether or not to accept that advice, either in whole or in part. Read more…

Since I’m stuck at home in quarantine (having travelled to Madrid for concerts), my didactic side seems to be working overtime; therefore I thought I might as well offer some thoughts on how (in my view) to play a melody – in this case, something almost everyone knows, Saint-Saëns’ The Swan. Read more…

Now, I know that I’ve ranted about this before; but – listening to the radio these days more than I used to during civilian life – I hear the clichés bouncing off the airwaves alive and well, untouched by the virus. Read more…

So Ida has left us – a legend has departed. What a violinist! What a woman! Magnificent, unique, incorrigible – she was a law unto herself. Read more…

Martin Lovett was one of the great characters in British musical life. It seemed to me when I was growing up that almost everyone I met knew him – and that they all loved him. Read more…

Greetings to all my fellow strandees in the music world! Isn’t this a nightmare? Suddenly our lives are filled with double bar lines, tacet signs – silence. Read more…

It is ten days now since the sad news arrived of the death of the cellist Marius May, in Jerusalem. Read more…

“In nothing, no profession, no occupation in the world – except psychiatry– are there so many prigs and humbugs and intellectual scalliwags as there are in the unfortunate industry, craft and art of music. The whole arena is littered with these dreadful asses.”
Thomas Beecham Read more…

Normally one writes an article about a famous figure on the occasion of an important birthday – or in their memory. But I want to write briefly about Ivry, because I’ve just seen him, and I want to pay tribute to him while he’s still here. Read more…