Sonata Marathon II

Pianist Tamara Stefanovich is more than just a gifted virtuoso, she is above all a free-spirited musical thinker. She demonstrates this once again with this marathon around the classical piano genre par excellence, the sonata. No Beethoven, no ironclad repertoire and no well-trodden paths: Stefanovich instead makes an ardent plea for groundbreaking works from the early Baroque as well as from the 20th century. In three movements of an hour each, Bach is played alongside Busoni and Scarlatti alongside Skrjabin, each time with an introduction by Stefanovich herself. After successful performances at London’s Southbank Centre and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, she now brings her acclaimed programme to the Muziekgebouw, where she has been a cherished guest for over a decade.

The second part of the Sonata Marathon marks a shift in focus, highlighting some titans of the 20th century. Béla Bartók wrote his percussive Piano Sonata in his ‘piano year’ 1926 for an ‘Imperial Bösendorfer’, a grand piano with extra bass notes. Hanns Eisler’s First Piano Sonata is noticeably influenced by his teacher Schönberg, while Paul Hindemith composed his Third Piano Sonata in 1936, not long before he fled Nazi Germany. They are joined by the great sonata master Domenico Scarlatti and the composing monk Antonio Soler, both from earlier times.