STEVEN OSBORNE 12 Aug 12pm & 2.30pm Old College Quad The performance lasts approx. 1hr with no interval. Supported by
Gavin and Kate Gemmell Please ensure all mobile phones and electronic devices are turned off or put on silent.
Steven Osborne Piano
Schubert Crumb Tippett
Impromptu D935 No 1
Processional
Beethoven
Piano Sonata No 2 Piano Sonata No 32 in C minor
1 Maestoso — Allegro con brio ed appassionato
2 Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
PROGRAMME NOTES Schubert was one of the earliest composers to use the term ‘impromptu’ for short pieces seemingly created on the spot. His F minor Impromptu, which opens today’s wide-ranging concert, is the first in his second set of four, written in 1827. And its apparent spontaneity conceals remarkable craftsmanship, from the jagged, seemingly endlessly descending opening theme to the deeply expressive later melody that forces the pianist’s left hand to jump back and forth across the right. American composer George Crumb, now in his 91st year, has forged a doggedly individual path throughout his eclectic music, often focusing on sound itself and the unusual timbres he can conjure from conventional instruments. His 1984 Processional begins somewhat meditatively, but its implacable repeated chords soon build a wash of piano resonance that carries enormous power, interspersed with brilliant, fanfare-like figures. Tippett wrote his brief, single-movement Second Piano Sonata in 1962, around the same time as his opera King Priam (which he quotes in the Sonata), and at a time when he turned away from the fluid
gracefulness of his earlier music to abrupt contrasts and idiosyncratic ideas. He originally intended to call the work Mosaics, to reflect its succession of short, pithy sections and its restless changes: its opening lays out the work’s five contrasting musical ideas, which Tippett collides together and transforms across the rest of the piece. In his final Piano Sonata, Beethoven seems to consciously contrast the muscular, bravura extroversion of his ‘heroic’ middle period with the transcendental visions of his final works. The serene nobility of its closing, song-like Arietta provides a sublime, even mystical farewell to a musical form that had occupied the composer for more than three decades.
David Kettle David Kettle is a music and arts writer based in Edinburgh, who contributes regularly to the Scotsman and the Daily Telegraph. He has also written for publications including BBC Music Magazine, The Times, The Strad and Classical Music, and for organisations including the BBC Proms, Glyndebourne and Scottish Opera.
STEVEN OSBORNE Born in Scotland, pianist Steven Osborne studied at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. His numerous accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year in 2013, and two Gramophone awards. He has had residencies at London’s Wigmore Hall, Antwerp’s deSingel, the Bath International Music Festival, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and he is Visiting Professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Patron of the Lammermuir Festival and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has performed internationally at venues including Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and he is a regular guest at both New York’s Lincoln Center and London’s Wigmore Hall.
Concerto performances take him to major orchestras across the world, including recent visits to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, in repertoire ranging from Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Messiaen through to Tippett, Britten and Julian Anderson, who dedicated his 2017 piano concerto The Imaginary Museum to Osborne. His recordings span a wide range of repertoire, including Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Ravel, Liszt, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Medtner, Messiaen, Britten, Tippett, Crumb and Feldman. He recently released a much-praised recording of Prokofiev’s ‘War Sonatas’, which was shortlisted for a Gramophone award.
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