Events

Franz Schubert 12 Ländler D790

Leonid Desyatnikov Eight Songs of Bukovina
Steppe wind a-blowin’
Oh, Petrivochka, a night so short
A swallow has flown in
If only mother had known
Green willow, green willow
Red arrowwood has blossomed white
Red arrowwood, green leaves
A lady had a husband, she loved some Peter though

Joanna MacGregor For Nina Simone:
Blackbird
Little Girl Blue
Good Bait

Interval

Johannes Brahms Piano Sonata no.3 in F minor, op.5
Allegro
Andante
Scherzo
Intermezzo
Finale

Joanna MacGregor is an exceptional musician, described variously as innovative, original, creative. As a concert pianist she plays the great halls and has premiered many landmark compositions; as Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music she inspires as well as teaches (Junyan Chen, who appeared in our last Series, was a student); she is a regular broadcaster, a sought-after curator of music festivals, and the Music Director and Principal Conductor of Brighton Philharmonic.

The first half of tonight’s programme is rustic, jazzy, bluesy – Schubert’s Austrian country dances; Leonid Desyatnikov’s 20^th century re-working of folk melodies from western Ukraine, and Joanna MacGregor’s own tributes to Nina Simone.

Brahms 3^rd Piano Sonata fills the second half. Brahms wrote this sonata as he turned 20, the same year that Robert Schumann catapulted him from obscurity into musical stardom. It is an enormous piece and with so many ideas that it takes five movements to follow them all through. Brahms never wrote another piano sonata – he had said everything that he ever wanted to say about them in this magnificent example.

Watch highlights from Joanna MacGregor’s ‘Soul of a Woman’ concert at Live from London Spring Festival