STEPHEN WAARTS / JULIEN QUENTIN

Long shunned by the public, Grieg nevertheless shares with Mozart and Tchaikovsky the ability to conceal a formidable inner complexity beneath seemingly accessible melodies. Liszt was not mistaken, holding this Second Sonata in the highest esteem. Stormy in character, it blends traditional Norwegian melodies with typically tormented Romantic developments. Johannes Brahms, meanwhile, composed a serene work in his First Sonata, in which the piano notes fall with the delicacy of raindrops -a gesture that earned the work the nickname Regenlied, or ‘rain song’. The rest of the programme summons up all the colours of Stravinsky’s ballets: shimmering and vibrant in The Firebird, a youthful work of indisputable posterity, they take on an apparent austerity in the Divertimento from the rarer, neo-classical Fairys’ Kiss, in which Stravinsky draws inspiration from Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen and pays homage to Tchaikovsky.