Experience the astounding virtuosity of Chopin in a performance by young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov. A two-time Grammy nominee for his album Rachmaninoff Variations, and winner of the Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky Piano Competitions, this concert showcases Trifonov’s prodigious talent with music written and inspired by the master of the Romantic era, and offers a timely sampling of his brand new album release, Chopin Evocations.
Chopin and His Admirers
No composer is more tightly bound to the piano than Frédéric Chopin (1810–49), and no composer more transformed the instrument. It is not a stretch to claim that without Chopin the entire history of the instrument’s repertory and players would be altogether different. He rethought the very essence of piano writing and playing, recognizing that in its evolution from a “harpsichord that plays loud and soft,” to its iron-framed and steel-stringed incarnation of the mid-Romantic, the piano had become an entirely different instrument that required an entirely different approach.
Composers since Chopin’s day have regularly written homages to this nerve-wracked, frail little man and his paradigm-busting pianism. Figures as lofty as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff have joined hands with lesser (yet warm) lights such as Federico Mompou in writing works that either take a Chopin melody as their starting point, or else incorporate some element of Chopin’s inimitable style. That’s the impetus behind Daniil Trifonov’s program: the first half consists of homages and the second features one of Chopin’s loftiest creations the Second Piano Sonata.
Artists
Piano
Program
Chopin from Carnaval
Hommage à Chopin from Moods
Nocturne (Hommage to John Field)
Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni
Variations on a Theme of Chopin
Un poco di Chopin, Opus 72, no.15
Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Opus 22
Piano Sonata No. 2
Presenting Sponsor
Great Performers Series
Piano
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