My last column, a broadside against the sterility of the classical piano recital, engendered a lot of comment (see Letters to the Editor, Jan/Feb 2013 and page six of this issue). I'm grateful to those who agreed with me, and I thank those who didn't as well. The trouble is it's hard to be subtle in an 1,100-word column. I went for the Big Effect a...

​A funny thing happened on the way to writing this column: I started questioning everything about this profession of ours.Even more than I usually do. In future columns I'll get at more of this, but let's start with the institution we call the piano recital. In fact, we'll begin at the very pinnacle of the art form, the height to which ev...