Newcastle under Lyme Festival

Earlier in the month I participated in 3 classes at the Newscastle festival- playing nocturnes by Frederic Chopin (F minor) and Nancy Litten and Franz Schubert's Hungarian Melody. An interesting afternoon - mainly teenagers competing, but it's always useful for playing experience (mine and theirs!). Here's Nancy Litten playing her nocturne - a certain influence of that Chopin Nocturne(!) I didn't dress up for my performance!..

I've been playing regularly at the Alberti piano group - which now has meetings on line and in person.

Here's my latest performance from the online meeting. Arnold Bax's Nereid - a watery tone picture very gentle with a few ripples (a nereid was a (one of many!) daughter of poseidon). I'll be playing the Schubert again at the Alderley festival in May.

Teaser Tuesday - 19th March

Teaser tuesday's now hosted here.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

In the Faustian seriousness of the B minor Sonata there is no room for ambiguities. One has to take Liszt seriously in order to play him well.

Alfred Brendel 'Music, Sense and Nonsense' And I've just got rid - clearing music I'm never going to seriously attempt - of my score of the Liszt B minor! A difficul read - at least at first! Skip though to the 'Music Classical Music be entirely serious' essay and that got me going - and interested. Brendel on music, lots of fascinating information.

Teaser Tuesday!

Oh does my login here still work?! Maybe (maybe??!!) I still have things to post and catchup, but starting gently with this Teaser tuesday's now hosted here.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

They'd both kept up, however, their veneer of wry humour - unlike Colette prowling angily in her pink dress, which had a ribbon under her bust just like her mother's, except that Colette's bust was more cumbersome. She'd picked at a bowl of stuffed olives until they were all gone.

from Tessa Hadley's Free Love. I've not read any of her books before, this was published in 2022. With its tangled relationships, and its era, I found it reminiscent of Iris Murdoch's Severed Head.