To Paul Crossley’s piano masterclass at the Con. After three hours of intense concentration I was completely exhausted. His teaching was very challenging. He was not a giver of praise or even of encouragement, except to one girl who played Ravel; everyone else played Debussy. I loved the language he used: not only because it was clever and striking but because it showed me that the way I have been trying to write about music is not, as I had feared, hopelessly romantic or amateurish. ‘A furtive texture,’ he said. ‘A harmonic wash in the left hand. Then he clears the texture. Let the harmony settle again, before we take off. Hover above what you’re going to do.’ The concept of phrasing began to have meaning for me, not to mention texture. And now I know what the pedal is for: to ‘avoid breaking the sound’.