Piano Passions

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Robert Taub returns to Levinsky Hall for a very special solo piano recital that includes some of the most challenging and expressive piano music ever composed.

This is an evening of passionate music. Ravel’s magical Gaspard de la Nuit, inspired by poems of the same title by Aloysius Bertrand, weaves a sensual music fabric, shimmering sonic textures, diaphanous veils of sound. Beethoven’s Sonata Op.109 – the first of the final three transcendent sonatas – is the result of his unceasing obsessive passion for creating new perceptions, new innovations in musical form, as a central element of his expressive creativity.

Chopin, the soul of Romanticism, is by turns subtle, extroverted, nocturnal and passionate in his musical narratives. The iconoclastic Schönberg, who dared to create a new musical language and pathway in his short but pivotal Klavierstück Op.33a, was passionately brave in the courage of his musical convictions, so much so that he is the inspiration for Thomas Mann’s “Doktor Faustus,” one of the most gripping novels of the 20th century. And Liszt, the fiery virtuoso, created in his Mephisto Waltz a passionate story of the Faust legend, temptation lead by the Devil as portrayed in Lenau’s Faust.

Beethoven – Sonata in E major, Op.109
Ravel – Gaspard de la Nuit
Chopin – Etudes Op.25 no.7 and Op.25 no.12, Nocturne Op.27 no.2, Ballade Op.23
Schönberg – Klavierstück Op.33a
Liszt – Mephisto Waltz

“Do join us for this evening of music that is passionate in its own right, and about which I personally am deeply passionate! These are some of the most challenging works for piano, and I am particularly excited about playing them here."
- Dr. Robert Taub, Director of Music, The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth

Date: Saturday 14 October 2023
Time: 19:00–21:30 (including pre-concert talk and interval)
Venue: Levinsky Hall, Roland Levinsky Building
Ticket information: £12, £10 concessions, FREE to all students and under 18s