MOZART Fantasia in C Minor K475 (13’)
R SCHUMANN Fantasy in C Op.17 (30’)
RACHMANINOV Variations on a Theme of Corelli (19’)
LISZT Légende No.1: ‘St François d’Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux’ (10’)
LISZT Mephisto Waltz No.1 (11’)
Llŷr Williams is known and loved by television and radio audiences the world over for his role as pianist in the finals of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. In this solo recital, Llŷr brings together some of the most captivating works for piano. The endlessly inventive fantasies of Mozart and Schumann are a prelude to Rachmaninov’s set of Variations that take us deep into the heart of the piano. Llŷr’s recital ends with works by the master of pianistic virtuosity, Franz Liszt, one a work of profound religious sentiment followed by a second diabolical dance.
Mozart completed his Fantasia in C minor on 20 May 1785 and it was published in December 1785 (in tandem with the Piano Sonata in C minor K457) with a dedication to Therese von Trattner (1758–96), one of Mozart’s favourite pupils. The Fantasia shows Mozart at his most audacious and the Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein wrote that the work ‘gives us the truest picture of Mozart’s mighty powers of improvisation – his ability to indulge in the greatest freedom and boldness of imagination, the most extreme contrast of ideas, the most uninhibited variety of lyric and virtuoso elements.’ This extraordinary work combines tragic grandeur with a relish for extreme chromaticism and bravura, alongside moments of great tenderness.
© Nigel Simeone
In December 1836, Robert Schumann finished a ‘Sonata for Beethoven’ but revised it in 1838 and gave it the new title Fantasie. It was published in 1839 with a dedication to Franz Liszt. Schumann marks the first movement to be played with ‘imagination and passion’. It is a highly original reinvention of sonata form, with unconventional key relationships and structural innovations, notably the interlude placed at the moment when the recapitulation might be expected to arrive. The second movement depicts Schumann’s imaginary army of Davidsbündler marching against the Philistines. Dominated by obsessive dotted rhythms, this colourful movement ends with a vertiginous coda. The third movement is a complete contrast. It is poetic, restrained, and noble – and surely full of quiet longing for Clara. When Clara first received a copy of the Fantasie she wrote to Schumann that it made her ‘half ill with rapture.’ Just over a year later, on 12 September 1840, they were finally able to marry. Liszt was immensely proud of the dedication, considering the Fantasie to be among the greatest of Schumann’s piano works, but he never performed it in public. Only with the next generation of pianists – many of them pupils of Liszt and Clara Schumann – did the Fantasie take its rightful place as a pinnacle of the Romantic piano repertoire.
© Nigel Simeone
Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme by Corelli have a singular place in the composer’s output as the only major work for solo piano that he composed after leaving Russia in 1917. The title is slightly misleading since these are variations on La Folia, an ancient tune that was used by Corelli – as well as by Lully and Vivaldi among others – but certainly wasn’t composed by him. This set of twenty variations (with an Intermezzo between the 13th and 14th variations) was composed in Switzerland and the manuscript is dated 19 June 1931. Rachmaninov himself gave the first performance in Montreal on 12 October 1931. Dedicated to his friend Fritz Kreisler, the variations show Rachmaninov at his most concentrated and ingenious.
© Nigel Simeone
In 1862–3, Liszt composed two Legends which he dedicated to his daughter, Cosima von Bülow (later Cosima Wagner). The first legend is a brilliantly evocative musical depiction of St Francis of Assisi praying to the birds. Liszt’s inspiration came not only from religious texts but also from the birds he observed on Monte Mario near Rome, while he was on a retreat – an occasion when he was visited by Pope Pius IX who may have been given a private performance of the piece. Liszt first played it in public at a concert in Budapest on 29 August 1865.
© Nigel Simeone
Liszt composed the Mephisto Waltz No.1 in about 1859, at the same time as a version for orchestra. It was dedicated to Carl Tausig, the Polish virtuoso who was considered Liszt’s most gifted pupil, still in his teens at the time. As well as being a dazzling concert waltz that calls on all a pianist’s technical resources, it is also a programmatic work derived from the 1836 Faust by Nikolaus Lenau (indebted to Goethe, and to Byron). Liszt quotes part of Lenau’s preface in the score to explain the story, which is closely mirrored by the music: A wedding feast is in progress with music and dancing. After encouraging Faust to join the festivities, Mephistopheles snatches a violin and draws seductive sounds from it. Faust whirls about with a beautiful woman in a wild dance, out of the hall and into the woods as a nightingale warbles its song.
© Nigel Simeone
SCHUBERT String Trio in B‐flat, D. 471
ADRIAN SUTTON Spring Masque for violin and viola
SIBELIUS String Trio in G minor
MARTINŮ Duo No. 1 for Violin & Cello, H. 157
MOZART Divertimento in E‐flat, K. 563
Fenella Humphreys last played in the Portsmouth Chamber Music series with the Lawson Piano Trio in May 2012. She mixes chamber music with a solo career in fairly equal measure.
The word Divertimento usually implies something light‐hearted, even frivolous, but this late Mozart work is perhaps the most sublime of all his chamber music. Leading up to this we have an intriguing mixture of lesser known trios by famous composers, and two duo rarities. Adrian Sutton is better known for a string of commissions for the National Theatre, including War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night‐time, and, most recently, Angels in America.
RAVEL Quartet in F
SHOSTAKOVICH Quartet in No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110
DVOŘÁK Quartet in F, Op. 96, American
The Piatti Quartet makes a welcome return to Portsmouth, with perhaps the most famous of all quartets not yet heard in our series, Dvořák’s vigorous and very tuneful ‘American’.
Dvořák was still alive when Ravel composed his only addition to the repertoire, and indeed only ten years separates the two pieces, and yet their sound‐worlds could not be more different. Another huge contrast comes with Shostakovich’s darkly autobiographical C minor work, composed in just three days in 1960. At the time he thought it might be his last, though in the event he went on to produce seven further quartets.
HAYDN Andante with Variations in F minor, Hob.XVII/6
SCHUBERT Sonata in G major D.894
MOZART Rondo in A minor, K. 511
BEETHOVEN Sonata in A‐flat, Op. 110
This is our third attempt to have Martin Roscoe play this programme!
It includes four composers who really cemented Vienna’s reputation as the musical capital of the world. The works presented were all composed there within about forty truly golden years, during which what we now call the ‘classical’ period made the transition to early romanticism. Haydn and Mozart represent the former, while Beethoven’s creative output exemplifies the transition. By the time of Schubert’s final sonatas, Beethoven had only been dead for a year, and yet we are clearly in a different age.
Please note the change to the previously advertised programme
MOZART Piano Trio in E, K. 542
WEIR Piano Quartet
BRAHMS Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25
The Gould Trio last visited Portsmouth Chamber Music four years ago with clarinettist Robert Plane when they gave a spellbinding performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.
This time they are joined by violist Gary Pomeroy from the Heath Quartet who played here in May 2013. Brahms’ G minor piano quartet is his most popular chamber work with its whirlwind Hungarian Dance finale. Judith Weir has become almost a household name over the last 20 years or so, being awarded a CBE in 2005, and succeeding Sir Peter Maxwell Davies as Master of the Queen’s Music in 2014.
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in E‐flat, Op. 74, Harp
SCHULHOFF String Quartet No. 1
DVOŘÁK Quartet in G, Op. 106
Like Martin Roscoe, the Pražák Quartet was due to perform for us two seasons ago. Their only previous visit to Portsmouth was in the second season of these concerts, way back in January 2006 when concerts were in the Cathedral.
Erwin Schulhoff was born in Prague in 1894, and was strongly influenced by jazz idioms and rhythms, this quartet dating from 1924. Beethoven’s ‘Harp’ quartet needs little introduction, its nickname deriving from the harp‐like pizzicatos of the first movement. Dvořák’s penultimate quartet is his finest, with great energy in the outer movements, and a most sublime slow movement.
HOWELLS Rhapsodic Quintet
COLERIDGE‐TAYLOR Nonet in F minor, Op. 2
ELGAR Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84
An enterprising all‐British programme which features Elgar’s wonderful late piano quintet, composed at the same time as the Cello Concerto, and inhabiting some of the same mood.
Samuel Coleridge‐Taylor studied at the Royal College of Music where his composition teacher was Stanford, and one of his main musical influences was Dvořák. He had enormous success with the cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, but some of his finest works are actually his early chamber pieces. Howells was very influenced by Elgar who was 35 years his senior, and this piece for clarinet and strings shows the strong melodic impulse which is characteristic of his music.
Live from The Guildhall in Portsmouth
Unfortunately there were a few sound issues with this broadcast. We have made the edits which we can to improve this, though we are sorry it has not been possible to raise the quality further. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for any inconvenience.
BARTÓK String Quartet No.3 (16’)
SCHUBERT String Quartet No.13, D804 Rosamunde (34’)
Coming live from Music in the Round’s longstanding residency at The Guildhall in Portsmouth, the acclaimed Doric Quartet presents two contrasting, complementary works. The third of Bartók’s string quartets is a pacey tour-de-force: dense, complex and intricately patterned. Schubert’s Quartet No.13 begins with a wistful, lyrical song-like theme that develops from pervading melancholy into an uplifting melody with a gentle, optimistic finale.
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