Listen to the soundtrack Poddubny.Four Preludes for piano performed by Asya Ardova (piano)on the page ardSOUND of ardisonata.net.

The day of February 23, 2008, was marked by my début at the Section of Popular Music led by the Petersburgian composer Viktor Pleshak. The concert was devoted to the new compositions of the Petersburgian music in honour of the 75th anniversary of the Composers’ Union.

That was the stage of the Composers’ House again. I was happy indeed to meet my old friends — two grand pianos (our friendship counts 12 years, lasting from 1996). Whom was I playing then?
That was the composer Sergei Poddubny (born in 1954) with the true Petersburgian spirit piercing all his Four Preludes for Piano. He had suggested that I should represent his art already in December, 2007. As an avant-garde pianist I considered his music to have been lovely, but too clear for me. His music phrases were mostly predictable, his mood — too benevolent, and finally — Prelude № 4 had the inscription “Dedicated to Asya Ardova”. I would compare Poddubny with Mozart by his purity and lofty mood. Those were the thoughts visiting me, while I was preparing to my concert, when quite of a sudden I felt some metamorphoses happening with the music material, rather independent of my intentions. Where did this broken string come from? Why did the dissonant marching Prelude № 2 remind me of Chopin’s dreams of Polish legends and heroes rising out of the golden salon recesses hidden in his heart?

Was it not, but the ghost of Peter Tchaikovsky, eager to find his abode in the Third Prelude, where lyrical tender melody seems pour out of the fourth dimension?
The Fourth Prelude was me myself as Poddubny had implied. Was it not, but that rainy stormy morning near the Czech Zhleby Castle, or mysterious evening

at the Jewish District Josephs in Prague, when medieval cabbalistic Golem seems to lead any passer-by to Franz Kafka and show the birth of modern psychology in the art.