It is 3 am, I just finished packing my suitcase and can’t even think about sleeping since the performance a couple of hours ago of the Second Shostakovich Concerto was rather disturbing for me. My 8-year old son Janos said of the second movement, that it was scary - and so was more or less the whole concerto. I felt incredibly sad while playing - don’t know if it was the music itself, my pitiful playing or the presence of my poor ailing mother in the first row (must have been the first time she ever sat so close). (more…)