As a concert musician you gradually learn to focus on that little slice of time, typically from 7.30 to 9.30 pm, when you must be at your best. Over the years you learn how to build up towards that point, rehearsing during the day (but not wearing yourself out), eating wisely, resting at the right point, all with the aim of being at your most alert and energetic during the performance. You know you have only one chance to give your best.

Making a recording therefore comes as a shock, because in my experience it involves playing your chosen repertoire at high intensity for hours on end. Nothing in rehearsal quite prepares you for this, because in rehearsal you instinctively pace yourself, and in recording you cannot. If, like me, you work in small chamber groups or on your own, you suddenly find yourself facing unprecedented challenges. A recording session typically starts at 10 am (after an hour of warming up) and runs through until the evening, or until everyone feels too tired to go on. My groups have always wanted to record whole movements at a time, so that their shape on disc has integrity. Only when we've got the whole movement safely recorded do we go back and ‘patch’ mistakes. When we appear in person to play a concert somewhere, we want to be able to match up to, or do better than, our recordings. However, playing movements over and over at full stretch is something we never did before we first encountered a recording session, and something we never do at any other time.