I finally saw some snow this winter for the first time—and not just a little bit, but the real thing in Finland. It was beautiful, even if very cold. But I kept warm playing Messiaen’s huge Turangalila Symphony with the Tampere Philharmonic and conductor Hannu Lintu. This was a great opportunity to do it for the second time and to get to know the score even better. The first day I just listened to the orchestra without playing myself, and that was very valuable. When you’re playing, you can’t possibly hear all that’s going on behind you. Hannu was doing it for the first time, and did a magnificent job. He dedicated the sixth movement (the slow, ecstatic one) to the memory of Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund who died this week. Valerie Hartmann-Claverie was the ondes martenotist (does that word exist?). We are all pretty exhausted now after the huge effort it takes to pull it off in concert. I look forward to doing it many more times in the future. Now it’s on to all the French music for my second concert at Wigmore Hall this season on February 12th. A huge amount of work awaits me for that—rather frightening. But I guess I’ll do it somehow.

Last week the Guildhall School of Music and Drama gave me an Honorary Fellowship during their annual dinner held in the stunning Draper’s Hall in the City of London (used, evidently, in the film “The King’s Speech”). I will be giving my third masterclass there next October. Some of the students performed for us, and two of them, a piano duo, put together their own improvisation based on the Goldberg Variations and the World War II song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”. They could never have known what that meant to me: it was my mother’s favourite song, and she used to play it often (and when she could no longer play, I played it for her). And the evening of this dinner was the fourth anniversary of her death. So that was very touching.

It was back to the sardines this weekend. My first recitals of 2012. Both with a very demanding all-Bach programme. I suppose to some people listening, it would have seemed like fairly simple music to play. How deceptive that is! I think to the man in Milan last night who was sitting in the front row, right in my line of vision, who fidgeted constantly, dropped the coat off his knees several times, talked to his wife, forever leafed through his programme—finally I got fed up and caught his eye during the Two-Part Inventions and glared at him! Gave him the dirtiest look I could muster up while playing counterpoint. He at least then stayed still for most of the remainder of the recital. As a friend of mine once said, people should audition to sit in the front row! Otherwise, the weekend was a huge pleasure. The Teatro della Pergola in Florence (see photo) was packed full at 1000 people on a Saturday afternoon. They have learned, after my numerous concerts there, to be totally quiet from the start. I enjoyed meeting all the people of different nationalities afterwards while signing CDs—Florence is always full of them. But in January the tourists are really not so numerous and the atmosphere in the town is unique. After the concert, the Canadian Ambassador James Fox hosted a reception for Canadians living and working in Italy—among them James Bradburne who is now curator of the fabulous Palazzo Strozzi. He took me on a whirlwind private view of the current exhibit which has some breathtaking Botticellis. Then I entertained a couple for dinner who had flown from Ottawa to attend the recital—having made the winning bid in the recent auction done by the Ottawa Choral Society. That was a full day. And so were the others.

The Canadian Friends of the Trasimeno Music Festival are holding a second online auction to help raise funds for the festival. It starts tomorrow, January 18th, and goes for two weeks. Here’s your chance to have a private lesson with me! To view the items and to register to make a bid, please go to:

http://www.charityauctionstoday.com/store/TMF/

The New Year is about to begin here in Italy. The half moon is shining beautifully on the waters of Lake Trasimeno in front of my house. In a short while I will go outside and watch the fireworks going off in every town around the lake. My own private show. My neighbours next door usually put on a display as well. Until then I’m happy indoors with my Fazioli piano, the fire in the chimney, and peace and quiet. I’ve been playing the complete Two-Part Inventions (please don’t anyone say these are easy), and beginning (for the third time in my life) the Brahms D minor Concerto which I will perform, finally, in March. A dream of mine since I was 15 years old and went to bed most nights listening to Julius Katchen’s LP of it. This past year I accomplished another dream: Messiaen’s Turangalila which I will play again in Finland in a few weeks. Other huge projects for 2012 include The Art of Fugue (which I must start from scratch), and solo CDs of Fauré and Beethoven (including the Sonatas Op. 101 and Op. 22 which I will revisit after many years). As usual, more than enough to keep me busy. So, if you have a dream, why not try to go after it? Time goes by so quickly. At the moment, my resolution is to exercise more. My stretching DVD remains too often inside my suitcase. Maybe I can get it out now and do half an hour before the year is over. But first, may I wish you all a very Happy New Year and good health throughout 2012!

My marathon recordings sessions are over. Two CDs in a week is a lot, but I’m really happy with the results so can now relax. It gave me so much pleasure to record these early Debussy pieces, including Children’s Corner which I played when I was 10 years old (see photo of the original title page on my old, beat-up copy, showing Jimbo the Elephant). Next year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Debussy’s birth, and I hope this CD will bring as much enjoyment to my listeners as it has to me. Now I must write the notes, as always. That’s a tough job, and I really have to be home in London with all my books to do it properly. Andrea Oliva, the first flute from the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome, joined me for the recording of six flute sonatas by J.S. Bach. That is quite unique, because all the recent recordings by major flautists have been done with harpsichord. They sound very different with the piano! Three of the six we recorded have proper, written-out keyboard parts (including the great B minor), but three are for basso continuo, so I had to decide what to play in the right hand, following Bach’s figures. This is not easy, also because many major editions have realizations that are written with the harpsichord in mind, and to me it sounds wrong to re-produce this note for note on the piano. In the end I re-worked what I found to my own taste. Now, after a private event in a few days at which I must perform, I can at least have a break from concerts until mid-January. As always there is tons to do, but it will be good to wind down for a while (after I cook Christmas dinner!). I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas!

My work is not over for 2011, but my concerts are. Last night I played in a theatre in Coesfeld, Germany, not far from the Dutch border. I do so hate it when there is no CD signing as I then have no opportunity to meet with the audience afterwards. It seems that some regular audience members of my festival in Italy were there, and drove quite a long way to hear me, but I didn’t get a chance to see them. That is a pity. During a full recital one shares so much with the people present, and I find it very strange to then be cut off from them so immediately. I know that many artists prefer it that way, but I’m not one of them. Otherwise the audience was very appreciative and listened intently to the programme of Bach and Debussy. On Monday I begin recording a Debussy solo CD for Hyperion in Berlin, and am very much looking forward to that. A highlight of the year was my recital in Boston’s Jordan Hall the week before with the same programme. It’s such a beautiful space to perform in, and I could feel the warmth of the audience right from the start. In the space of four days, I was in Stockholm, London, Ottawa, and Boston. So much travelling recently, and packing and unpacking, and brief stopovers in my homes during which I run around like a chicken without its head. I also did another big programme at the Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile, near Venice. That one comprised of six Bach Flute Sonatas with Andrea Oliva, with whom I will be recording them next week after my Debussy is finished. Another huge amount of repertoire that needs such careful consideration (and filling out of the continuo part in the case of three of them). Ingegnere Fazioli (in the photo with me) uses piano hammers for decorations on his Christmas tree in the lobby of his factory!

Booking for the 2012 Trasimeno Music Festival (June 30 to July 6) opened this week for Friends of the festival. Already nearly half our capacity for the chamber concerts has been sold (we only have 200 seats in the beautiful castle courtyard). So book early if you want to come to the whole festival--seven concerts in seven days. The programme is visible on http://www.trasimenomusicfestival.com/program.php

If you would like to order a CD from my online shop and want it personally autographed to you or someone else for Christmas, please order by midnight (GMT) on December 5th! The new recording of Mozart Piano Concertos is now available. Just click on the word "shop" in the navigation on the left.

I loved playing the programmes for my recitals this week, and both venues were very special. In London's Wigmore Hall I repeated my Salisbury recital--in quite a different acoustic and on a Fazioli. It made me happy that people appreciated the French music so much. It's a favourite part of my repertoire and one which I am grateful to my former teacher, Jean-Paul Sevilla, for passing on to me when I was so young. It's such uplifting music in so many ways. In Stockholm I played for the first time in 25 years in the beautiful Konserthuset (see photo), the hall built in 1926 where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. In 1986 I performed there as soloist with the Toronto Symphony under Andrew Davis. An audience of about 1000 listened very intently to Bach and the French composers and I signed a lot of CDs afterwards. Christmas should come more than once a year in that regard! There I played the older of their two Steinways. Interesting: the older one had so much more clarity and colour. What I look for is an action that is clear in attack and release--it's amazing how often you get pianos that simply don't release the sound immediately when you let go of the key. I hate a soggy piano. On a good piano you must be able to play extremely softly and lightly and still have a ring to the sound. If it's just dull, or if you have to put in too much weight, then forget it. There is often much more power in lightness than people realize.

Can you imagine playing a solo piano recital in Salisbury Cathedral? Well, that is what I did last night. It was actually rather dramatic. I was sitting alone in between the transepts, between the nave and the choir, with strong lighting highlighting the piano and keyboard. Of course the acoustic was hugely reverberant, but it was better with people in it. I always try to use such an acoustic to my advantage rather than fight it. The programme was mainly Debussy—what I will be playing in London’s Wigmore Hall on Friday. I couldn’t imagine two more different venues. But it was enjoyable, and even if the audience wasn’t huge, they were very appreciative. When I came off at the end of each half, I had to walk over the grave of Sir Edward Heath--the former Prime Minister who also conducted occasionally (I performed once with him and the English Chamber Orchestra--a story for the memoirs!)--in my high heels!

Several people have sent me the link to the concert from Helsinki. You can see the English page of their website on:

http://yle.fi/musiikki/klassinen/rso/english/

The link to listen to the concert is:

http://areena.yle.fi/audio/1321517624950

It will be in their archive until December 15th. The TV version I think might be available once it’s transmitted after the New Year.

An announcement will be made soon about the programming for next year’s Trasimeno Music Festival. Watch this space!

Last night was very special: my debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and their music director designate, Hannu Lintu, in their brand new concert hall, the Musiikkitalo. It was packed out, and will be again tonight when the TV cameras will also be present. It was a huge programme, with two contemporary works (one by Magnus Lindberg who was present in the audience; the other by Anders Hillborg); Debussy's "Iberia", and the G major Piano Concerto by Mozart, K.453. Some concerts stand out from others, and I will always remember last night as one of them. You can hear it on the website of Finnish Radio (www.yle.fi) for the next month (and I think also see it live tonight), if you can manage to click around successfully, using your best Finnish. When I get the direct link, I will post it.

Also this week I visited Ainola, the house of Jean and Aino Sibelius that is just half an hour outside of Helsinki. Normally it is closed at this time of year, but they opened it especially for me. It was very moving to see where he spent so much of his life, and all his personal belongings and artefacts. I even played his 1915 Steinway for a few minutes (see photo). It was such a cosy house, with a huge green fireplace dominating the living room. He and his wife are buried in the woods nearby.

Before coming to Helsinki, I did a fundraiser at the Villa San Fermo in Lonigo, Italy for the Societa del Quartetto of Vicenza. That's a place that is also used for rehearsals and recordings with baroque orchestras, and I was delighted to meet Alan Curtis and members of "Il Complesso Barocco", especially as they were accompanied by the author Donna Leon. Serendipitous meetings like that are always lovely!

Here I am again. After a few weeks without concerts (but practising as much as possible), I’m back to the non-stop schedule. Last night, after being awake for 31 hours straight the day before when I crossed the ocean immediately following my Toronto recital, I was already down in Kent giving a fundraiser for the Trasimeno Music Festival. It was actually the item from the online auction organized by the Canadian Friends this past spring which offered myself and baritone Gerald Finley (see photo) in recital before dinner. We had great fun! I played some solo Debussy and Bach, and then Gerry and I did a great Schumann group, followed by ballads by Sullivan, Benjamin Britten, and Cole Porter. That was one way to stay awake with my jet-lag. It was the only day in the next year or more when Gerry and I could find it possible to be together in London for such an event, even though we both live here. In Toronto I played for the first time in the new Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music. It was very moving to see a packed house and the enthusiasm from the crowd. The hall is terrific for recitals, and the Fazioli from Merriam Music sounded at its best in such acoustics. The Conservatory is where I gave my first full-length solo recital age 9. All those years ago, and I’m still going. I arrived in Toronto from Ottawa where the day before I had give the second of two performances of the Ravel Concerto with my home town orchestra at the National Arts Centre, conducted by Arild Remmereit. That’s a piece I must record someday, as I’ve played it so much since I was a kid. It was great to see so many friends again in Ottawa. It’s still “home” to me in many ways. I found it very touching: in the CD line-up, there was a young man who told me that he worked for the Croatian embassy. He said that when he was given a list of countries where he could go for his next posting, he saw Canada and said to himself he wanted to go there because then he might have a chance to hear Angela Hewitt live. And he did!