You are invited to join us online to for this beautiful performance by RCM alumna Lara Rayner. Lara gained an AMusA through the Riverina Conservatorium in 2015 and recently completed a Bachelor of Music (Performance) - Piano through the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2019
Lara will be performing piano works by Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Chopin.
Known as Les Adieux, or “The Farewell”, Beethoven’s piano sonata No. 26 in Eb major was written when Napoléon Bonaparte’s attack on Vienna forced Beethoven’s patron, Archduke Rudolph, to leave the city. The syllables “Le-be-wohl”, meaning “farewell”, are written over the first three chords of the Adagio-Allegro, and this three-note motif pervades the whole of the movement.
Following is Rachmaninov’s Prelude in B minor, a work with an almost indescribable mood of emptiness and yearning.
Chopin’s piano sonata No. 2 in Bb minor is a haunting, passionate and beautiful work. It was received with mixed opinions and has been given many different interpretations. A sense of its complexity and power can be seen in Schumann’s comment that “the Sonata ends as it began, with a riddle, like a Sphinx - with a mocking smile on its lips”.
Lastly come two of Chopin’s Etudes. Op. 10 No. 3 in E major is a lyrical work that develops polyphonic and legato playing and was given the description ‘sadness’ or ‘farewell’ by his critics. The Etude in C minor, Op. 25 No. 12, is often identified as the ‘ocean’ etude. It is characterized by rapidly ascending and descending arpeggios that call to mind a tumultuous rising and falling of water.
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