No superlative too great for the piano hero Abdel Rahman El Bacha, who has been playing the stars out of the sky for almost half a century, since his triumph in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1978. We can’t wait to welcome him back to our stage with a programme dedicated to the nocturne after 1900: the terrain of supernovas and lesser-known masters who added a hint of impressionism, a dash of the avant-garde or a touch of ‘neo’ to the genre. On three monumental pianos, this recital swings effortlessly between the unabashedly Chopinesque flair of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alexandre Tansman, the sound poetry of Gabriel Fauré and Germaine Tailleferre, the meditative power of Dora Pejacevic, the meticulous technique of Sergei Bortkiewicz and the enchanting elegance of the nocturne that Jean Françaix wrote for the Société Chopin de Paris.
Program
F. Chopin: Nocturnes, opus 62, no. 1, 2 | 20th century nocturnes by M. Balakirev, G. Fauré, C. Griffes, D. Pejacevic, S. Bortkiewicz, H. Villa-Lobos, A. Tansman, G. Tailleferre, S. Barber & J. Françaix
Performers
Abdel Rahman El Bacha, piano (Pleyel 1843, Gaveau 1908, Bechstein 1920)
