Friday 24 May 2013, 8pm
£20 gallery/ £15 stalls/ £5 students
ALKAN - Concerto for solo piano
SORABJI - Le Jardin Parfumé
BUSONI - Fantasia Contrappuntistica
Jonathan Powell brings us another programme of substantial solo piano repertoire, from composers preoccupied with the transcendental power of virtuosity. Alkan's Concerto for solo piano requires the performer to act both as soloist and orchestra, and speaks a highly colouristic and perfumed musical language influenced by Liszt.
Concluding the programme, Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica filters pianistic transcendentalism through a rigorous contrapuntal technique: a completion of the final, unfinished Contrapunctus from Bach's The Art of Fugue, the piece is both an expression of admiration for the German composer and, arguably, the culmination of the Romantic ideal of virtuoso piano writing.
Please note that the programme has been amended from Sorabji's Gulistan to Sorabji's Le Jardin Parfumé.