Pianist Jong-Gyung Park has a City Date at the University of Derby
Pianist Jong-Gyung Park wowed the audience on her last visit to Derby Chamber Music in September 2012. She’s back on Friday, February 14, with a programme ranging from Beethoven to Janacek.
The recital begins with Schubert’s Sonata in A, D664, which he probably wrote for a young pianist who he met on a summer holiday, and clearly took a fancy to.
Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat, Op 110, is one of that extraordinary group of works he wrote in his last years, in which he takes the musical tradition he inherited into strange, unexplored areas.
The gently lyrical first movement is followed by the blunt, punchy humour of a movement drawing on two popular Viennese songs of the time. The ridiculous is followed by the sublime, as the extended finale turns a slow, improvisatory lament into a sturdy, affirmative fugue.
After the interval comes a strangely haunting work by Janacek, From the Street, 1 October 1905.
It commemorates the death of a young workman during a demonstration in Janacek’s home city, Brno.
The event upset Janacek hugely and this work was his immediate response. For some reason, though, he seems to have taken against it – he burned the last of its three movements at the final rehearsal for the premiere.
Finally comes one of the great Russian piano masterpieces of the 19th century, Mussorgsky’s Pictures From an Exhibition.
The work ends with the imposing Knights’ Gate at Kiev, with Orthodox chant and pealing bells adding to the grandeur.
WHAT: Derby Chamber Music: Jong-Gyung Park (piano).
WHERE: Multi-Faith Centre, Derby University, Kedleston Road, Derby
WHEN: Friday, February 14, 7.30pm.
TICKETS: £13. Concessions: senior citizens £12; students, registered disabled and unemployed £7; school students aged 18 and under free; on the door only.