It is a fact that most of the composers who wrote extensively for the keyboard, be it harpsichord, organ or piano, were exceptional executants.  This is certainly true of this evening’s 3 composers, Bach, Liszt and Ravel.  Bach composed a huge amount of important music for the organ and the harpsichord.  No-one has written finer music for the organ with his Preludes and Fugues, Toccatas, the 6 Trio Sonatas, the monumental Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, and many, many Chorale Preludes.  In my organ student days, my teachers were unanimous in selecting our repertoire; each lesson was Bach and something else.  

The importance of his 2 Volumes of keyboard Prelude and Fugues under the title of “Well Tempered Clavier” are of huge importance, expanding the realm of all 24 major and minor keys.  In addition, there are the keyboard Suites (English and French) and the 4 Volumes, published in the composer’s lifetime, entitled Clavier-Ûbung (keyboard practice). The 6 Partitas were grouped together in the 1st volume.  Unlike the English and French Suites, the Partitas are more wide ranging in the choice of titles and style of the movements.  They are also aimed at a more proficient performer.  

Of Bach himself, his first biographer, Johann Niklaus Forkel (1749-1818), wrote: “ John Sebastian Bach’s manner of managing the clavier was admired by all those who had the good fortune to hear him, and envied by all those who might themselves claim to be considered as good performers”.        

                                                                            
I have written many times before about Franz Liszt as the father of the Piano Recital.  When Liszt began to promote himself as a great piano virtuoso. He began to fill his recital programmes with new works of his own composing.  This was a matter of necessity.  However interesting it might have been to hear this extraordinary exponent perform Beethoven sonatas, he needed new music and Liszt was leader of the new, developing language of music.  He wrote piano diaries of his travels in the Années de Pèlerinange (Years of Pilgrimage), arrangements of Schubert songs and, as we will hear this evening, transcriptions from operas.  All demonstrated the composer’s remarkable virtuoso technique.

 
When Wagner married Cosima von Bülow, Wagner became Liszt’s son-in-law!  Liszt transcribed a number of pieces from Wagner’s operas for piano solo, Isolde’s final outpouring in Act 3 of the opera that bears her name, is one of the most famous.  Liszt also turned to the new Italian operas of Bellini and Mozart.  The Norma Réminiscences is one of the most challenging for the pianist and prominently feature the famous aria “Casta Diva”, made famous to contemporary audiences by Maria Calas and Joan Sutherland, amongst others.  

Music of supreme difficulty was not the sole reserve of Liszt.  In composing his Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrnad, Ravel set out to write a piece that was more difficult Balakirev’s Islamey – another work that challenges the pianist’s technique to the limit.  While Ravel’s Gaspard is difficult it is also a wonderful set of 3 musical poems, each proffering a musical scene to the listener.  Ondine is the musical nymph; Le Gibet with its repeated notes shows us the rope on the gallows swinging in the wind and Scarbo brings us to the world of the mischievous and evil Goblin of night time dreams.  

 

Programme Notes Copyright Alistair Jones, 2026