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Niel Du Preez & Mark Nixon in Recital
2nd April 2017 | 7:30 pm
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PERFORMERS | |
NIEL DU PREEZ | MARK NIXON |
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Programme
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Sonata in d minor K213
Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
Sonata in D flat Major No.5
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
4 Preludes Op. 11
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Vallée d’Obermann
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Sonata in D Major KV 311
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Schumann – Widmung
Mendelssohn – Auf Flügeln des Gesanges
Wagner – Isoldens Liebestod
(Transcriptions)
Duration
This concert will last approximately 60 minutes, with no interval.
Niel du Preez opens his the recital with one of Scarlatti’s more sombre Sonatas in d minor, which demonstrates the composer’s typical use of binary form. This is followed by a fast-paced Soler’s Sonata, which is unusually in the style of a Fandango – a spirited Spanish dance which was often accompanied by clapping or castanets. Followed by Scriabin’s Preludes Op. 11, written during the composer’s first compositional phase at the end of the nineteenth century, the recital slowly builds up to a virtuosic climax with Liszt’s Vallée d’Obermann.
The second half of the programme opens with Mozart. Composed in Mannheim in 1777, the first movement of the Sonata in D, K311 is an orchestral-sounding ‘brio’ movement, radiating exuberance. The song-like second movement has a profound poetical depth expressed in seemingly simple phrases. Among Mozart’s contemporaries, only Joseph Haydn could occasionally match such a wealth of expression. The lengthy final movement is one of the composer’s hunting rondos in six/eight time. It also includes a small written-out cadenza and crowns this sonata with youthful vigour and much excitement. Nixon follows it with Liszt’s most effective piano transcriptions – Schumann’s Widmung; a declaration of love to his new wife Clara, Mendelssohn’s Auf Flugeln des Gesanges which depicts a dream-like place of love and bliss and the tragic Isoldens Liebestod from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde.
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