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 - Nov 13

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Alicia strides to the piano and begins the B minor Sonata. A shock wave wobbles through the room as the piano rings out, abruptly massive-toned. The American boy sits forward, chin on hands, watching her every move.

Adding another sentence to lead more than musicians in! Another teaser from our book group book of the month - Jessica Duchen's Alicia's Gift - the other teaser came two weeks ago, for me, a second read - an easy read after a few more involved novels!
And here's Gilels playing that movement:


I think the very start needs something less than a massive tone!

WInter Wind

As Spring seems to be here, let's hark back to the cold with Samson François playing 2 Chopin Studies - Op 25 no 5 and 11 (the second being popularly called Winter Wind)

Hat tip to 'SG' on rec.music.classical.recordings.
I think 'Paul Procopolis' was a Barrington Coupe invention which the you tube poster is gently recalling.