Strata / Poets of the Piano

Performers
Gabriele Strata - piano

Programme
George Crumb
Makrokosmos Vol. I: IX. Dream Images

Fryderyk Chopin
Polonaise in F-sharp minor op. 44

Ferenc Liszt
Two Legends S. 175:
St. Francis of Assisi: The Sermon to the Birds
St. Francis of Paola Walking on Water

Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major D 959

An echo of one of Chopin's impromptus emerges from George Crumb's miniature like a memory of fading elegance. The Polonaise in F-sharp minor - with its wild flight and persistent repetitions - is more a surge of the heart than elegance. The two legends of two Saint Francises, patrons of Ferenc Liszt, have little in common with pious oil paintings - through pianistic mastery and freedom of form they lead toward contemplation, whether religious or artistic.

Franz Schubert's Sonata in A major D 959 restores a sense of proportion. Its second movement, Andantino, is a liminal experience - a gaze into an abyss into which Schubert lets rays of light.

Adam Suprynowicz