Huw Watkins and Piatti Quartet

Solo Piano and Shostakovich Piano Quintet

(Event 5: Sun 5 Oct 2023 3.00pm  Little Missenden Church)

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Huw Watkins piano Emily Holland, Michael Trainor violin Miguel Sobrinho viola Jessie Ann Richardson cello

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JS Bach Sarabande from Partita in D major
Robert Schumann Kinderszenen
Maurice Ravel Minuet sur le nom d’Haydn; A la manière de Borodine; A la manière d’Emmanuel Chabrier
Huw Watkins Prayer
Igor Stravinsky Tango
Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor op57

Programme Notes available for download here and free at concert

 

Huw Watkins’ solo recital in the first half of the concert starts with a piano transcription of the Sarabande from Bach’s best-known solo violin partita. It then moves on through the Romantic era in its earlier and later periods with Schumann’s 13 endlessly-charming childhood scenes plus some lyrical miniatures from Ravel. Huw then plays one of his own compositions, a delicately sparkling meditation, and finally performs Stravinsky’s Tango – perfect for thoughts of dancing during the interval.

The Piatti Quartet then join Huw to play Shostakovich’s only example of a piano quintet. Written in 1940, a few years after Stalin’s sharp criticism of the composer, three of its movements go back to classical form. The scherzo, however, is wonderfully vigorous and playful, casting off all constraints, while the finale is – as so often with Shostakovich – seemingly simple and optimistic but leaving doubts as to its real intentions.