The greatest living pianist

Why, despite his devoted fans, Grigory Sokolov won’t play live in Britain

Grigory Sokolov is a pianist in his fifties; he is overweight, Russian, sleeps only three or four hours a night, is a strict vegan and is obsessed with the occult. He can calculate with one glance the number of seats in an empty concert hall and remembers instantly, to within an inch, where a piano used to be on a stage he hasn’t played on for years.