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…

The Debussy project by Roberto and Mario Russo, investigates the complex world of Claude Debussy’s music, full of symbols and highly influenced by Impressionism and other pictorial currents of the late XIX century. Whilst celebrating the union between music and visual arts, it helps the listeners to delve deeper into philosophy, literature, legends from North Europe as well as into ancient cultures from the Mediterranean and Asia. In the second half of the programme, Yuki Negishi offers the audience a…

The final concert of PIANO WEEK’s residency in Beijing features all seven of our pianists exploring the vast piano duo repertoire, spanning from the classical to the twentieth century periods. Samantha Ward and Maciej Raginia start the recital with one of Mozart’s grander duets, the Sonata K521 which was dedicated to the composer’s two sisters, Babette and Marianne. This leads onto Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 6, reminiscent of Mozart in its style and only two movements long. Debussy’s Petite Suite follows…

Artistic Director Samantha Ward opens the concert with one of Scarlatti's beautiful 555 sonatas for keyboard, which attracted numerous admirers amongst composers such as Brahms, Bartok, Chopin and Liszt to name but a few. She follows it with Schubert's tender Sonata in A major D664, written in the summer of 1819 when the composer was only 24 and Schumann's Arabesque op 18. The Romantic spirit prevails in the second half of the concert when Maciej Raginia offers one of Chopin’s…

Artistic Director Samantha Ward joins forces with violinist Fenella Humphreys to open the first week of PIANO WEEK’s residency in Moreton Hall with Beethoven’s Spring Sonata. Published in 1801, this sunny and heartfelt piece instantly delights listeners with youthful energy and a lyrical opening melody. A mighty example of another young but more rebellious spirit follows in Brahms’ Sonata in G major Op. 78. As with all chamber music, but particularly in Brahms, this monumental and hugely demanding work pushes…

The artistic director of the festival, Samantha Ward joins forces with Japanese pianist Yuki Negishi in a rarely performed programme of two piano works. Inspired by the poem L'après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé and originally written in 1894 as a symphonic poem for orchestra, Debussy’s Prélude is considered to be the birth of modern music. While this version made its way back to literature in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain as Hans Castorp’s favourite recording, the piano version has…

Japanese pianist Maiko Mori begins her recital with one of Beethoven’s best known masterpieces, Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, popularly known as ‘Moonlight’. The musical journey continues with Mendelssohn’s Variations Sérieuses, which demonstrate the height of the composer’s creative powers, both in terms of the virtuosic and brilliant piano writing and the creativity with which he dissects his theme. Liszt’s picturesque work, Les Jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este looks forward to the impressionism of Debussy in its aural representation of water…

Japanese pianist Yuki Negishi opens her recital with two pieces from Schubert's Drei Klavierstucke D. 946, brought to light by Johannes Brahms and published for the first time forty years after the composer’s death in 1828. These are followed by Reflets dans l'eau, one of the many pieces Debussy wrote about water and, in particular, light reflecting off its surface. Hommage a Rameau, a sarabande kept in the spirit of austerity and seriousness of intention, honours a memory of one of the most…

Niel Du Preez opens his programme with Ferrucio Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s choral prelude ‘Ich ruf zu dir, Herr’. Rich in art, feeling and fantasy, these compositions were designed to enable music lovers to revisit a familiar repertory through the transcriber’s art. One of the greatest and most technically challenging pieces Beethoven ever wrote, his Appassionata, follows next. After its thundery sound world, full of emotional upheavals, the South African pianist opens up new horizons with a carefully selected set of…

The Romantic spirit blossoms in this all-Chopin recital opening with his late, mature works and then, rather interestingly, taking the listeners back to the final months spent in Warsaw when the young Fryderyk was occupied with the composition of his fiendishly difficult Grande Polonaise Brillante in 1830. This retrospective journey, veering through a series of closely related keys offers us a chance to hear how the complex, mysterious harmonies and textures of the Nocturnes Op. 62 and the perfect marriage…

Artistic Director Samantha Ward joins forces with violinist Fenella Humphreys to open the second week of PIANO WEEK’s residency in Moreton Hall with Beethoven’s Spring Sonata. Published in 1801, this sunny and heartfelt piece instantly delights listeners with youthful energy and a lyrical opening melody. A mighty example of another young but more rebellious spirit follows in Brahms’ Sonata in G major Op. 78. As with all chamber music, but particularly in Brahms, this monumental and hugely demanding work pushes…

This evening’s programme is headed by one of Chopin’s best loved Waltzes, a work with youthful exuberance which encapsulates the melodic charm and glittering brilliance of his writing. The great Schubert Sonata in B flat Major stands as one of the towering achievements of the early romantic piano repertoire and of Schubert’s own output. The very last sonata that he wrote, in the final year of his short life, this work soars with beauty and profundity in equal measure. The work…