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Janneke Brits in Recital
26th July 2022 | 7:00 pm
Event Navigation
PERFORMER | |
JANNEKE BRITS | |
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Programme
Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
Sonata in A Major D959
I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace – Trio: Un poco piu lento
IV. Rondo: Allegretto – Presto
Duration
This concert will last approximately 60 minutes, with no interval.
Janneke Brits performs Schubert’s penultimate Sonata in A Major D959. Alongside the neighbouring D958 and D960, all completed only a few months before the composer’s death in 1828, these works are often described by musicologists as examples of his late style. What characterises the sunny-natured Sonata in A Major are not just the life-affirming themes and the joyous feel throughout, in stark contrast to the composer’s declining health, but also the intricate use and development of his compositional methods and tools. In order to sustain the musical and dramatic integrity of such a large-scale work, Schubert uses cyclic motifs and themes in most ingenious ways, with multiple reappearances weaved into all four movements. Most notably, we can hear the strong musical connection between the opening sequence of chords of the Allegro and the conclusion of the Andantino and, equally so, the final bars of the Rondo reintroducing the beginning of the first movement. If Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise D911 composed only one year earlier deals with unrelenting pain and sorrow, this piano sonata does exactly the opposite – it embraces life with its happiest and most heavenly moments. If we wanted to find an analogy, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 could serve as a perfect example; a pure affirmation of nature and life and as he originally put it himself: ‘Recollections of Country Life’.