From Carnegie Hall to Leighton Buzzard!
I kid you not. Professor Ardakov hadn’t come straight from Carnegie Hall, you understand. Not without a change of socks, as it were. But he has played there, and in Leighton Buzzard: four times in each venue. I asked one of the Driving Wheels of LBMC how they had achieved this coup. The laconic answer was: we asked him. ‘Field of Dreams’ stuff …
Professor Ardakov tends to shiver the timbers of the resident piano when he comes. But this time he brought a gentler programme played, as is his wont, from memory. He began with four short pieces by Glinka, like delicious waterfalls of music caressing the ear. Glinka is considered the father of lyrical melody in Russian music. So Professor Ardakov next played Tchaikovsky’s ‘Piano Sonata No 8 in G’, showing us how Glinka was an important influence on Tchaikovsky (and on ‘The Five’* also). The linkages were reinforced in the knowledgeable programme notes that LBMC always provide.
After the interval he played a smorgasbord of short pieces for us: Mozart’s ‘Fantasia in D minor’; four early Etudes by Chopin; two pieces derived from folk music by Grieg, ending with two pieces by Liszt – ‘Consolation No 3’ in D flat major and ‘Valse de l’opera Faust de Gounod’. The substantial audience received these warmly and was rewarded with an encore of an endearing little song ‘The Lark’ by Glinka’s protégé Balarikov, writing in the style of Chopin – which tied up exquisitely the musical journey we had enjoyed during the evening.
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Published by Judi Moore
Hi there,
I hope you find something to interest you here.
In December 2017 I published my fourth book – ‘Wonders will never cease’. It’s a satirical campus novel set in the fictional Ariel University in 1985. If you enjoyed Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse novels, Willy Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’, David Lodge’s campus novels or Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ back in the day, you may enjoy revisiting the ivory towers of 1980s’ academe thirty years on. See what you think.
“It is December, 1985. The year is winding gently towards its close until Fergus Girvan, a Classicist at Ariel University, finds his research has been stolen by the man who is also seeking to steal his daughter. But which man is, actually, the more unscrupulous of the two? And is there hope for either of them?”
In the autumn of 2015 I published a volume of short fiction: 'Ice Cold Passion and other stories'. I am also the author of novella 'Little Mouse', a shortish piece of historical fiction which I published in 2014 and, a sequel to it, 'Is death really necessary?', my eco thriller set in the near future and which, confusingly, I published in 2009.
All the books are available from all good online bookshops and FeedARead on paper, and as e-books on Kindle.
On a semi-regular basis, and about a month after the event, I post here reviews which I do for Big Al & Pals, the premier reviewer of indie books, based in the States. My interests tend to thrillers, SF, magic realism and other quirky stuff.
On this blog are also posted the reviews I did for Leighton Buzzard Music Club over some five years up to the end of 2015. LBMC present annual seasons of eight monthly chamber music concerts at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard, Bucks. They select young musicians just beginning to make their name - and the concerts are usually magnificent. I was very proud to be associated with them.
I review other music, books, theatre and exhibitions which I've particularly enjoyed.
BTW - it says the link to Facebook is broken. I dispute that. Click it and see, why not?
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Judi Moore 