I’m preparing for my solo recital during the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral on Tuesday 18 August at 3.30pm. (Click on the link for programme details.) Admission is free.
My programme is a sort of audio companion to my book on Nocturnes, and contains a number of lovely nocturnes contrasted with other kinds of night music. It may seem counter-intuitive to play a programme of nocturnes in the middle of the afternoon …. but basically, that’s when the concert is!
As I say in the book, nocturnes are slightly unusual in classical music repertoire in being tied (at least in imagination) to a particular time of day. Most classical pieces are, as the Elizabethans used to say, ‘apt’ for any hour. One could play a recital programme of, say, a Bach Prelude and Fugue, a Mozart Rondo, a set of Beethoven variations, a Chopin Ballade and a Schubert sonata at any time of day without wondering if the pieces would sit more comfortably at a different time.
Nocturnes, on the other hand, seem to want to be played in the evening. But of course the audience can think themselves into an evening mood as they listen.
The afternoon series of piano recitals at St Mary’s Cathedral is a new Fringe venture – let’s hope the festival-goers will find their way to it. Please spread the word if you know anyone who’s going to be in Edinburgh next week.
I suppose nocturnes during the day could be seen a ‘visiting’ the evening, in the same way Ravel lets us visit Spain or Beethoven a pastoral landscape. Good luck with the recital – I’ll let my Edinburgh brother know!
I’ve just returned from today’s afternoon recital and look forward to yours on Tuesday.
I heard the Scriabin Prelude & Nocturne for the left hand Opus 9 on the radio when I came back from squash yesterday morning. I thought I had everything that Scriabin composed for the piano in my collection but had never heard that before.
I never heard of Scriabin until one of his Preludes was featured on the excellent Chick Corea Trio in Europe album which I must have played to death in my teens. Still one of the best live jazz piano albums ever. Difficult not to think of Scriabin when I hear Corea and vice-versa.
Scriabin does not get enough airplay on Radio 3 so it was welcome to hear this amazing piece for just one hand. I love the way Scriabin evolved from music that sounded like Industrial-strength Chopin to hinting towards Messiaen. I didn’t think there was anything particularly crepuscular about the music. It was just incredulous that it was performed by one hand.