Chopin  Polish Songs: Op. 74 Nos. 1, 2 & 3

Scherzo No. 3; Nocturne, Op. 27 No. 2; Ballade No. 1

Liszt   Tre sonetti di Petrarca

Sonetto di Petrarca No. 104; Paraphrase on Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’

Bellini   I puritani: ‘A te, o cara’

Verdi   Rigoletto: ‘Ella mi fu rapita! … Parmi veder le lagrime’

Gyula Rab tenor

Thomas Harris piano

Aldemir Tokov piano

Yekaterina Lebedeva piano

Illustrated talk by Patrick Bade

It was inevitable that the Sicilian Vincenzo Bellini (1801–35), whose musical ideal was ‘weeping in song’, and the Polish-born Fryderyk Chopin (1810–49), who understood better than any other composer how to make the piano weep and sing, should sincerely admire one another. Both men died at an early age, but their quintessentially Romantic music, characterised above all by extended and expressive melodic lines, continued to exert an influence throughout the nineteenth century – one that can be heard in the work of such disparate composers as Verdi, Liszt and Wagner, and even in the later, verista operas of Giordano, Cilea and Orefice. This concert, in the sympathetic surroundings of Leighton House, will explore both the relationship between Chopin and Bellini and the far-reaching impact of their music.