ROMAN BORISOV

Wranitzky, the musician whose opera ‘Das Waldmädchen’ inspired the Variations that open the programme, was already famous for allegedly premiering Beethoven’s First Symphony in Vienna in 1800. From a melody whose rhythmic irregularity undoubtedly seduced Beethoven, the composer developed a series of 12 variations with remarkable concision: the whole, augmented by a substantial coda, is no longer than 10 minutes, stringing together original harmonic movements, exploring atmospheres as varied as the mists of uncertainty (lost in a fog of F major) or the brilliant concerto cadenza. 

Godowski, Busoni’s successor at the Vienna Academy of Music, was described by Rachmaninoff as “the only musician of his time to have made a lasting and real contribution to the development of piano music”. In ‘Renaissance’, he presents his own vision of Baroque pieces by Corelli, Rameau and Scarlatti, following in the tradition of composers such as Strauss and Respighi. Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is similarly inspired by the Baroque; the composer combines these typically Baroque forms with the principle of cyclical themes, which he particularly appreciated, the work being composed of five main motifs set out at different points in the work, and recapitulated in the Fugue. 

A work of war par excellence, Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata, like the First Sonata for Violin and Piano and the Sixth and Seventh Sonatas for Piano, develops a funeral aesthetic of musical mausoleums and macabre dances, in a form of vast proportions.