Tomes, Susan. A Musician’s Alphabet. Faber and Faber, 2006.

            Occasionally serendipity (also known as browsable, open library stacks) will turn up a gem which you would scarcely happen upon otherwise. This charming little book, both brief and small (19 cm), contains 26 essays by Susan Tomes, a British pianist, the first woman to study music at King’s College, Cambridge, is one of those thoroughly professional and successful musicians who nevertheless are only known to a tiny circle of

music lovers, and has a string of recordings for Hyperion with chamber music groups Domus (a piano quartet) and the Florestan Trio. Tomes writes regularly for the Guardian (she has a blog at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/susan_tomes/), and her essays in the Musician’s Alphabet are journalistic inasmuch as they are free from jargon and footnotes, and written for the general reader. However they are far from the journalistic in that they are richly ruminative and usually deal with issues which, even if they may be of interest primarily to musicians, are timeless rather than timely. J is for Job (not a proper),

where Tomes thinks about the contradictions of parents who support children through years of musical training, only to discourage them when they, not surprisingly, want to make a life in music. Tomes notes “In Britain, no artist is considered to have a proper job…..In Britain a proper job means regular hours and regular pay. Better still, you should be seen to be at work….”. In X is for the Unknown, she ponders the vast expanse of interpretation which lies beyond the simple notes on the page (what you get in a MIDI output of a computer-produced score) and concludes that “the known, enduring qualities of great music need enormous quantities of unknown, unknowable ingredients to make them whole”. And in considering Zen, Tomes the perfomer tells us that “it is possible to experience the collapse of the intellectual space separating musician from music”, and indeed for much of the book she explores the obstacles standing in the way of getting to the core of the music, whether practical, technical, emotional or intellectual.

            An insightful book, which you may feel tempted to devour in one sitting….like a tempting box of chocolates, but without the effects on your waistline.