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Some notes on Winterreise

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This was a pre-concert talk for A Winter's Journey, a Musica Viva tour with tenor Allan Clayton and piano Kate Golla, with images taken from artwork by Fred Williams. This evening’s unique performance of Schubert’s magnificent Winterreise features not just two outstanding musicians, tenor Allan Clayton and pianist Kate Golla, but also a curated art experience with Australian landscape paintings by Fred Williams. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to open the can of worms we call performance practice and to discuss the boundaries of what a musical interpretation can and should be. Winterreise has spawned so many interpretations and re-interpretations, and as we sample just a few of the many Winterreises, I’m hoping to provoke you to the point where you think to yourself, “Well, I thought I was open-minded, but that one went a bit too far.” This iconic song cycle has been a lightning rod for adventurous musicians for many reasons: the music is wild and rich, but also re...
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Late style: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms

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This is a modified version of my pre-concert talk for a Canberra recital by Piotr Anderszewski on 21 November 2025, presented by Musica Viva Australia. This evening’s recital features the inspiring pianism of one of today’s most thoughtful solo artists, Piotr Anderszewski. I remember hearing Mr. Anderszewski in this same venue back when I was a student and he was performing a classical concerto (or possibly two classical concerti?)—either Mozart or Haydn—with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. I couldn’t remember the exact program and tried and failed to find it online. He did make a recording of two Mozart concerti around the same time with his own original cadenzas. It was nothing like I remembered; in the live performance he literally improvised the cadenzas on stage, and it was so much more vivid and wild and free than the polished version on disc. It made quite an impression on me as a young student! Hard to believe that this happened  more than 20 years ago... Last year I tur...
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Poems for the Piano: A Century of Ballades — Album notes

Introduction   Chopin’s Ballade in G minor, completed in 1835 and first published in 1836, was the first solo piano work of its kind. He later confided in Robert Schumann that he was inspired by the narrative poems—Ballads and Romances—of his Polish compatriot Adam Mickiewicz. The poet’s outspoken advocacy for Polish independence from Russia undoubtedly attracted Chopin, who expressed his outrage against Russia and solidarity with the Polish people only through his private letters and indirectly through his music.       If the romantic ballad tells a story of past legends, mixing in moral lessons and supernatural beings and other grand themes, then did Chopin have particular narratives in mind when composing his ballades? In his 1900 biography, Chopin: The Man and his Music , James Huneker writes that “there can be no doubt” that Chopin had a specific programme in mind for each of his four ballades, but wisely left no clue for us to work out any further details....
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