Listen to this only if you're feeling strong

This is Terence Judd in a live performance from 1978 of Scriabin's Etude Op.42 no.5. By the end of the following year, this brilliant young British pianist, winner of the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition, was dead. His body was found under Beachy Head, a notorious cliff by the sea in Sussex, where he was assumed to have taken his own life. He was 22 years old.

A few years ago I met his sister, Diana, and interviewed her about him. He had had a severe nervous breakdown several years earlier, she recounted: "He spent several months in a terrible place, in north London, having electric shock treatment and more. He used to think that he was Jesus Christ, and he would tell me that he would go into space and get a planet for me." (Read the rest here.)

The Scriabin Etude above is only about three and a half minutes long, but it is a harrowing thing to listen to. You need to feel strong to withstand the opening up therein of a soul in crisis.

My tricky waltz with Wagner

I've written an article for The Independent about creating my new play, SINS OF THE FATHERS, which is premiered next Sunday in the International Wimbledon Music Festival at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. In brief: how do you write a play about somebody you can't stand?

Incidentally, the only way I could get started was by thinking: "Well, what would Woody Allen have done?"...

Cast for our performance:
VICKY/COSIMA: Sarah Gabriel
FRANK/LISZT: Jeremy Child
WAGNER: John Sessions

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/my-tricky-waltz-with-wagner-8940302.html

Hold on to your hats...it's the R3 Girls

It's BBC Children in Need again and Radio 3 is pitting girls against boys as their competitive star turn. So here are the girls. Singers are Ruby Hughes, Clara Mouriz, Charlotte Trepess, Elizabeth Watts and Kitty Whately, with the ladies of the BBC Philharmonic and The Halle conducted by Sian Edwards. And look out for special guests in the ranks: violinist Tasmin Little and pianist Kathryn Stott. (Why not a woman composer too? As for Pudsey Bear - we don't know about that...)

Happy Friday. I am chopping a script, and it hurts. Cuts are a vicious matter. I'm wondering if this is how our prime minister feels sometimes.

Woman of the Future

Brava bravissima to the young Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, who has just won the Woman of the Future Award.

Alexandra says: "This evening we celebrated women, equality between genders and an internationally cherished Romania, a country that makes me proud. I was the only non Brit in the Arts and Culture category and it gives the hugest of honours to announce that I was awarded the Woman of the Future Award, becoming an Ambassador for classical music. It's an exciting time for women all over the world and a huge step for us, strong, united and because we can!"

TONIGHT: Alicia's Gift goes to Leighton House

Tonight: we are delighted that Alicia's Gift: The Concert of the Novel will be presented by the Kensington & Chelsea Music Society at Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Road
London W14 8LZ. It's an amazing venue, the former home of Lord Leighton and his art collection, where east meets west...

Kick-off is 7.30pm and Viv and I, much encouraged by Saturday's successful outing (unexpectedly alongside a Mighty Wurlitzer), are looking forward to it immensely. Enormous thanks to the doughty Peter Thomas and the enthusiasm of KCMS for this project. I read; Viv plays Chopin, Falla, Debussy, Ravel, Granados, Messiaen and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; and we finish with eine kleine piano duet...
BOOK HERE: http://www.kcmusic.org.uk/alicia_concert.htm