Pinch me - I'm doing a concert with Peter Donohoe

I can't quite get my head around this one, but Peter Donohoe has invited me to his festival in Fishguard to give a performance of the Alicia's Gift concert with him, week after next.

Repertoire will be tweaked as appropriate - the Scriabin Sonata No.5 will have the party-piece spot in the second half. There's the Ravel duet to conclude, though, so, yeah, I have to play a duet with this guy whose playing I have admired enormously ever since hearing him on the radio for the first time as a teenager, so it is a scary if also thrilling prospect. Last year when I was in Moscow I heard Peter play Rach 3 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, with that same Scriabin as an encore - a stunning, unforgettable concert.

Alicia's Gift is on Tuesday week, 28 July, at St Peter's Church, Goodwick, at 2pm. More here. 

Here is Peter playing Rach 3 at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982...

None shall sleep listening to this

Trailer for Jonas Kaufmann's new album of Puccini. What other singer could possibly promote a new album with a recording of Caruso and get away with it?

Resistance is pointless. Turn up the volume and wallow.

Rare Terence Judd footage from Tchaikovsky Competition 1978

This is rare footage - apparently now viewable for the first time since the year it was filmed - of Terence Judd, the young British pianist who took his own life a year after winning fourth prize in the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. Here he is playing in the prizewinners' concert. Please listen, remember, think.

Thanks to Angelo Villani (who incidentally has made target for his own recording) for bringing it to my attention.

Programme with timings:

01:28 - Shostakovich Prelude and Fugue no. 15, op. 87
06:36 - Scriabin Etude op. 42 no. 5
10:58 - Ravel Miroirs, La Vallée des cloches
17:45 - Barber Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, op. 26, Fuga: Allegro con spirito
23:27 - Liszt La Campanella

RIP Alan Curtis

Last night we heard of the sudden death of the musicologist, baroque revival pioneer, harpsichordist and conductor Alan Curtis at home in Italy at the age of 81. To say that the music world is in mourning is not saying enough.

I am feeling shell-shocked because I had an email from him only three days ago. I was interviewing him about a major project he was preparing for a tour of Australia - a pasticcio opera, the first that he had composed himself - and he sounded full of enthusiasm, vigour and humour, looking forward with joy to what would have been his first visit to Australia, where he was going to work with a group of fine young musicians.

He will be sorely, sorely missed.

Et bien, mes amis...

Today is Bastille Day - hence known, phonetically, as Le Cat-orze Juillet. And it happens to be Ricki and Cosi's birthday. My kittens are already 1 year old.

Mostly they get along. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes Ricki steals Cosi's food. Sometimes she washes his ears for him. And sometimes they have boxing matches.

So here is a little French song starring two French cats to celebrate. (If you're not into cats and humour, please just log off.)