THE SECOND concert of the 77th season of the Evesham and District Music Club will feature a virtuoso piano performance on July 19.
All Saints Church will feature the talents of concert pianist Slava Antipov – a regular at Wigmore Hall – with a programme featuring works by Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Ravel.
Trained at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music, Slava was a finalist in the Liszt Society International Piano Competition and plays regularly in the UK and abroad.
He will playing Bach’s Italian Concerto, Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor, a number of etudes by Liszt, Chopin’s variations on Mozart’s La ci darem la mano (from Don Giovanni) and Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.
The Bach Italian Concerto, originally titled Concerto nach Italiænischen Gusto (Concerto in the Italian taste), is a three-movement piece originally written for harpsichord in 1735.
It has become popular among Bach’s keyboard works, and has been widely recorded both on the harpsichord and piano.
The 32 Variations on an original theme by Beethoven was written in 1806. The variations commence with an eight bar chromatically descending bass line to provide the theme after which nearly each variation keeps to 8 bars as well.
The work has been called ‘Beethoven’s most overt pianistic homage to the Baroque”‘as much the style emulates dance forms of that period. The variations differ in character, technical difficulty and dynamics.
The second work which uses the ‘variations’ device is the piece composed by Chopin – variations on Mozart’s ‘La ci darem la mano’ . It was Chopin’s first work for piano with orchestra written when he was just 17.
The audience will also hear the etude La Campanella (Italian: The Little Bell) , the third of six Grandes études de Paganini composed by Franz Liszt in 1851 and No 5 in Bb major, Feux follets (wills o’ the wisp) and Chasse-neige (snow-whirls) No 12 in Bb minor.
The final piece is Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. This work is a suite of piano pieces written in 1908 and premiered in Paris the following year.
Chairman of Evesham and District Music Club, Oliver Lister, said: “It promises to be an evening of amazing piano playing and virtuosic performances. We hope people join us as we are a very warm and friendly group who always warmly welcome new members and visitors to our concerts.”
As usual there will be a bar open before and during the concert (cash only) and a raffle.
All the Evesham and District Club concerts are held at All Saints Church, Evesham and start at 7.30pm. Visit evesham-music-club.co.uk for further programme details.
