Edinburgh Festival jump-in

The poor old Edinburgh Festival has had a tough couple of days: last night the Dresden Staatskapelle had to cancel their concert because their instruments were stuck in a lorry in Prague. Tonight Hélène Grimaud is having to change from the Schumann piano concerto to Beethoven 4 because of a finger injury. And this morning I replaced Ivan Moravec who was unable to play a recital due to ill health. These occasions always arouse mixed feelings; of course, one is sad for the indisposed musician, but one also enjoys having the opportunity. For me, this is particularly true of Edinburgh's Queens Hall. I grew up attending and playing in concerts there, and it remains one of my absolute favourite venues with it's combination of great intimacy, acoustic and piano.

In a strange way, it's quite fun doing jump-ins like this - the lack of preparation can be really advantageous to the quality of performance, adding to the spontaneity and sense of danger (I had 2 days to prepare). Whether that was true today, I don't know. I didn't quite get into the first half, partly because 11am is a really tough time to play a concert, partly because I'm experimenting with how I play Beethoven in anticipation of a recording next month. The second half felt better but Jeannie tells me the first wasn't too shabby. It's actually very important to have people whose opinion you trust in these matters - often the impact of a concert is very different from how it feels on stage, and Jeannie always gives me illuminating feedback. In fact, I first started falling for her when we went to a jazz club in Singapore and she started talking about the drummer's sense of swing - 'a chick that knows her jazz?' That got me really interested. The black dress didn't hurt either.

You can judge for yourself at lunchtime 11th September on BBC Radio 3: Debussy-Childrens Corner, Beethoven-Waldstein sonata and 5 pieces from Messiaen's Vingt Regards.