This article in the Grauniad about his public expression of discontent with US foreign policy made me think that I really ought to spend more money on recordings by Krystian Zimerman.

The paragraphs that most caught my attention are near the end, and tell you everything you need to know about the ridiculous heights of paranoia post 9/11:

At least some of his opprobrium appears to be personal. Shortly after 9/11, his piano was confiscated by customs officials at New York’s JFK airport, who thought the glue smelled funny. They subsequently destroyed the instrument.

For several years he chose to travel with just the mechanical insides of his own piano and install them – he is a master piano repairer, as well as player – inside a Steinway shell he borrowed from the company in New York. In 2006 he tried to travel with his own piano again, only to have it held up in customs for five days and disrupt his performance schedule.

Incidentally, his performance of the Webern op. 27 Variations is pretty stellar – he perhaps doesn’t imbue the scherzo with as much fun as Mitsuko Uchida does, but it’s still a great rendition. If “rendition” isn’t too loaded a word to use in this context…