Cherry Ge, Piano Recital, Petworth Festival: Beethoven, Albéniz, Chopin, Messiaen, and Szymawnoski

Описание: 00:00 Introduction by artistic director Stewart Collins, applause, and Introduction to programme

08:03 Beethoven’s Bagatelles, Op. 119, seem fleeting, yet although they appear to be brief sketches full of character and contrast, they are nevertheless complex, rich with complexity and emotional nuance. These miniature gems, written toward the end of the composer’s life, offers brief glimpses into his later style where simplicity is deceptive, showcasing his abilities to convey profound emotions within concise musical forms.

21:00 Albéniz’s Evocación, the opening piece of his Suite Iberia, invites a kind of listening rooted in memory and atmosphere — a misted recollection of Spain, heard through gesture and rhythm more than melody. Its name says it all: an evoking, a summoning. With only brief moments of climaxes, most of Evocación is contained within the softest ranges the piano can offer- hovering around ppp for most of the piece. Yet despite the tenderness of its most lyrical passages, there remains an intense darkness that beckons in the shadows even if it never fully appears.

26:53 If the pain in Albeniz’ Evocación was more acutely felt, the suffering in Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp minor, Op. 48 No. 2, brings us closer to melancholia. It speaks with a long, singing line and a sense of spaciousness that invites the listener into its emotional world, while at the same time is characterised by its repetitive melody that almost borders on obsessive, as if unable to escape a sense of sorrow and regret. Perhaps we hear here the sound world of the polish word, ‘żal’- meaning sorrow, longing, regret, and even fury- that Liszt claimed was the foundation of Chopin’s musical language.

34:16 Messiaen’s Courlis Cendré, from Catalogue d’Oiseaux, is an altogether different kind of invocation: a sonic landscape drawn from nature and transcribed into musical language. Built around the call of the curlew, it is a piece full of the sounds Messiaen the ornithologist recorded at the island of Ushaint off the west coast of Brittany: the lashes of waves; chatter of birds; the staggering brilliance of a lighthouse’ alarm; the creeping mists that come at the close of the day. Some hear strangeness, others reverence.

43:25 One of his earlier works, Szymanowski’s early Variations, Op. 3, draws inspiration from the traditions of nineteenth century piano music. This work, dedicated on his friend Arthur Rubinstein, while set apart from his later work by the fidelity to traditional forms of musical construction, nevertheless holds within each variation the core of all the bold harmonies that permeates his later works. Each variation reshapes a single idea, sometimes delicately, sometimes dramatically, with increasing complexity and colour. What emerges is not just a set of contrasts, but a kind of inner unfolding- a journey that, alongside all the other works in tonight’s program, suggest not conclusions, but possibilities to reconnect with what might have otherwise remained unspoken.




Lewis Parr, AV Technician

Petworth Festival
July 25th, 2025