Strings Attached
This event has already happened
This event took place on Wednesday 21 October 2020.
- Wednesday 21 October 2020
- St John's Smith Square
Strings Attached
Wed 21 Oct 2020
St John's Smith Square
Need to know
Repertoire
- Sir Lennox Berkeley Concerto for Piano and Double String Orchestra Op.46
- Elgar Piano Concerto Op.90 - II: Larghetto
- Robert Matthew-Walker Concertante on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Double String Orchestra Op.168
Features
- Jan Latham-Koenig Conductor
- Mark Bebbington Piano
- Strings of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Location
St John's Smith Square
Mark Bebbington, Jan Latham-Koenig and the strings of the RPO present a richly varied programme of twentieth-century British Piano Concertos. In his late Piano Concerto of 1958, Lennox Berkeley combines his admiration for Stravinsky’s neo-classicism with his own blend of understated chic and lyricism. This is a fascinating chance to hear a modern-day performance of a work which has remained inexplicably neglected since its 1958 premiere.
Elgar’s unfinished Piano Concerto preoccupied him for his last twenty-one years and he was sketching it alongside his Third Symphony at the end of his life. The Piano Concerto is represented in today’s concert by its slow movement, in the premiere of a new realisation by Robert Matthew-Walker.
Matthew-Walker finishes the concert in his own inimitable style with his recently written and recorded Piano Concertante on a Theme of Paganini (2000). Taking as its starting point ‘the’ celebrated Paganini theme (beloved by composers from Brahms and Rachmaninov to Lloyd-Webber), Matthew-Walker combines humour, virtuosity and lyricism in a work which is sure to raise a smile!