Programme:
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Seasons, Op.37a

Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata in A minor D 537

Franz Schubert
Piano Sonata in A major  D 664

Cast:
Barry Douglas – piano

The Irish conductor and pianist Barry Douglas (* 1960) arrives with a repertoire that uses the piano primarily as a singing instrument. The popular Tchaikovsky’s twelve-part cycle dedicated to each month of the year brings characteristic moody pieces.
The Schubert´s piano sonata D 537  is featured in the 1985 film adaptation of E.M. Forster’s “A Room with a View,” as the protagonist, Lucy Honeychurch is practicing piano. The “Little” A major sonata is the shortest among Schubert’s complete sonatas. The manuscript, completed in July 1819, was dedicated to Josephine von Koller of Steyr in Upper Austria, whom he considered being “very pretty” and “a good pianist”. The lyrical, buoyant, in spots typically poignant nature of this sonata, fits the image of a young Schubert in love, living in a summery Austrian countryside, which he also considered to be “unimaginably lovely”.