Steven Osborne OBE is one of Britain’s most treasured musicians with an immense depth of musicality and exceptional refinement of expression across a diverse repertoire.
His numerous awards include The Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year, two BBC Music Magazine Awards and two Gramophone Awards.
The first half of his attractive programme consists of three gorgeous Arabesques and twenty very short pieces by Schumann and Debussy imaginatively capturing and transporting us to the vivid world of childhood. The second half contains one large, late, great work of Schubert. Every bit as overpowering, dramatic and poetic as Schubert’s much-loved quintet which we heard in the first Series, the sorrow and the wild desperation of the sonata’s slow movement is as shocking today as it must have been to Schubert’s astonished contemporaries. But much of the rest of the piece glows with the whole gamut of warm human emotions experienced with bitter-sweet intensity by the young Schubert who knew that he was not long for this world.
Programme
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Arabesque in C major, op. 18
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) From Children’s Corner Suite
iv) The Snow is Dancing
ii) Jimbo’s Lullaby
iii) Serenade for the Doll
v) The Little Shepherd
Claude Debussy Two Arabesques
Robert Schumann Kinderszenen, op. 15
i) Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of foreign lands and people)
ii) Kuriose Geschichte (a curious story)
ii)Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Buff)
iv)Bittendes Kind (Pleading child)
v) Glückes genug (Happy enough)
vi) Wichtige Begebenheit (An important event)
vii) Träumerei (Dreaming)
viii) Am Kamin (At the fireside)
ix) Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the hobby-horse)
x) Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious)
xi) Fürchtenmachen (Frightening)
xii) Kind im Einschlummen (A child falling asleep)
xiii) Der Dichter spricht (The poet speaks)
Interval
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959
i) Allegro
ii) Andantino
iii)Scherzo (Allegro vivace)
iv) Rondo (Allegretto)
