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Programme notes (by Julian Jacobson) and pianist biographies

7.00 pm Callum McLachlan : Sonata in E minor Op 90
Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck — Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen

One of a number of important transitional works between Beethoven’s middle and late period style, along with the Op.96 Violin Sonata and the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte , the E minor sonata shows the composer loosening the joints of classical sonata form in pursuit of an ever more fluid, seamless texture. Of an extreme subtlety, Artur Schnabel once said it was the Beethoven sonata he had least often played to his own satisfaction. It is also one of the select group of sonatas to have only two, strongly contrasted movements. The key word in Beethoven’s expressive marking for the first movement is ‘Empfindung’ (Beethoven is using the German language, as he does in the other great ‘transitional’ sonata, Op.101), denoting sympathy or personal feeling. The movement is extremely concentrated, yet despite its brevity Beethoven dispenses with the customary exposition repeat: as in Op.101, he is working towards a continuously unfolding musical narrative - Wagner’s ‘endless melody’. The minor key is pervasive, yielding only to the major for short passages. According to Schindler - who probably embroidered the story in his customary way - the sonata represents the love life of its dedicatee Count Lichnowsky who wished to marry an opera singer, hence beneath his social standing. The impassioned first movement represents ‘Struggle between the Head and the Heart’ and the second ‘Conversation with the Beloved’. The songful second movement is in the major key almost throughout. A formally old-fashioned rondo, its musical language is of an extreme refinement, with magical harmonic perspectives that recall Mozart rather than Haydn or indeed most earlier Beethoven. Schubert’s beautiful late Rondo for piano duet (D.951) is clearly influenced by this wonderful movement

Callum Mclachlan was born into a family of musicians, and started lessons with his father at the age of 7, and entered Chetham's School of Music at age 11, where he studied with Dina Parakhina. He currently studies at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has performed at many prestigious concert venues in the UK, Europe and USA, including performing Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, works of Benjamin Britten in Steinway Hall London and Liszt's 2nd Piano Concerto at RNCM Concert Hall and at the Turner Sims Concert Hall in Southampton. In 2019, he made his New York recital debut, performing works of Beethoven, Brahms and Percy Grainger. Most recently, he made a recording of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata in Salzburg, in collaboration with G. Henle Verlag. He has won 1st prizes in the Welsh International Piano Competition, The Youth Scottish International Piano Competition, the RNCM Chopin Competition as well as reaching the final of the EPTA Piano Competiton. He is a prize-winner of the Musical Odyssey Talent Unlimited Prize. He also receives funding from the Royal Philharmonic Society, who generously support his studies abroad.

7.20 pm Ben Schoeman : Sonata in A major Op 101
Etwas lebhaft, und mit der innigsten Empfindung. Allegretto,ma non troppo — Lebhaft, marschmäßig. Vivace alla marcia — Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll. Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto — Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit. Allegro

The first of Beethoven's five late sonatas, the A major is also his first full scale sonata since the great ‘middle period’ peaks of the Waldstein and Appassionata : Beethoven in the meanwhile had concentrated his energies on orchestra and chamber music as well as the opera Fidelio, but was ready to return once more to his own instrument for these crowning achievements. Certain experimental features and more open forms led to the sonata becoming a favourite with the Romantics: Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt all paid more or less direct homage to it, and Wagner derived his principle of endless melody from the sonata's opening movement. Opening obliquely on the dominant, this singing, gentle Allegretto conceals its miniature but impregnable sonata structure beneath a seamless flow of graceful melody. The powerful second movement March is the inspiration for the similar movement in Schumann's C major Fantasie Op.17. The third movement, a ‘slow and yearning’ recitative, runs straight into the energetic and celebratory finale: its development section consists largely of a dense fugue, one of the earliest of Beethoven's visionary late fugues which culminated in the finale of the Hammerklavier and the string quartet Grosse Fuge .

Ben Schoeman is a Steinway Artist and a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria. He won the first prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition, the piano prize and gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, the contemporary music prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, and the Rupert Prize from the South African Academy for Science and Art. He has performed at the Wigmore, Barbican, LSO St Luke's, Cadogan and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gulbenkian Auditorium in Lisbon, Teatro Vittoria in Turin, the Durban and Cape Town City Halls and the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. He has appeared at many festivals such as City of London, Edinburgh Fringe, Enescu, Grahamstown and Ottawa. In 2016, he obtained a doctorate from City, University of London and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Schoeman's solo album, featuring works of Franz Liszt, is available under the TwoPianists label. In collaboration with pianist Tessa Uys, he is currently recording all Beethoven's Symphonies transcribed for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka for SOMM Recordings – the first volume was released in July 2021.

7.50 pm Ariel Lanyi : Sonata in B flat major Op 106 'Hammerklavier'
Allegro — Scherzo: Assai vivace — Adagio sostenuto — Introduzione: Largo. Fuga: Allegro risoluto

The Hammerklavier is the mightiest of all Beethoven’s sonatas and one of the mightiest ever written: whether it is the greatest depends on one’s vantage point - perhaps the final sonata Op.111 is a more profoundly realised and complete work of art - but it is certain that nothing like it had ever been composed before and it remains unique, a vast peak of human musical experience. Beethoven muttered as he completed it that he had written something that would keep pianists busy for the next hundred years but in this he was being too modest: the sonata is proof against ever becoming ‘easy’ and remains a challenge forever, both to play and to listen to. A word about the title: basically it just means ‘piano sonata’ (keyboard with hammers) and it represents Beethoven’s nationalistic wish at this time to get away from the Italian ‘pianoforte’. In fact four of the last five sonatas are titled ‘Hammerklavier’. But there is something about the title which is absolutely right for Op.106 in its massiveness and indeed in its opening ‘hammering’ chords! It is also the only sonata for which Beethoven gave metronome marks, providing one of the sonata’s many controversies as they have generally been agreed to be considerably too fast, on the verge of unplayable in the first and last movements. I cannot possibly do justice to the vast four-movement structure in a short programme note. The first movement, ‘unusually fast and fiery’ as Carl Czerny styled it, contains another of the work’s insoluble puzzles, a questionable note in the lead up to the recapitulation about which scholars are still arguing. The second movement Scherzo is a kind of parody of the first movement, still in the tonic key but with a brooding Trio in the minor and an extremely odd coda with Beethoven indulging in some violent, aphoristic musical punning. Two mysterious notes lead into the slow movement, in the remote key of F sharp minor. This the first fully worked,independent slow movement in the sonatas since Op.31 No.2, and it is certainly one of Beethoven’s profoundest utterances, weighing in at over 15 minutes and conveying a sense of great desolation yet at the same time of great beauty. The Fugue that constitutes the finale is introduced by an extraordinary, visionary Largo that still looks on the printed page like contemporary music. Stravinsky said of the slightly later Grosse Fuge for string quartet that it was ‘modern for ever’, and the same can be said for Beethoven’s fugue in Op.106. There seems to be a gigantic battle of wills going on between Beethoven, his (self-imposed) material and the piano. Naturally Beethoven wins but only after titanic struggles and a near-disintegration towards the end!

Ariel Lanyi makes his debut this summer at Wigmore Hall and participates in the Marlboro Festival in Vermont, alongside renowned artists such as Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss. He was a prize-winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) and Concert Artists Guild (CAG) International Auditions in 2021. Over the last year Ariel has recorded music by Schubert for Linn Records (due for release in 2021) and given ‘online live' recitals for the Vancouver Recital series in Canada and the Banco de la República in Colombia.  Previous highlights include recitals at the deSingel Arts Centre in Antwerp (stepping in for Till Fellner), Salle Cortot in Paris and the Miami Piano Festival.  Born in Jerusalem in 1997, in 2021 Ariel completes his studies as a full scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Ian Fountain, having studied with the late Hamish Milne. Prior to this, he studied at the Conservatory of the Jerusalem Academy of Music.  He has performed widely in Europe in cities such as Paris, London, Rome, Prague and Brussels, and regularly appears in concerts broadcast live on Israeli radio and television, as well as on Radio France. Awards include 1st Prize at the 2018 Grand Prix Animato Competition in Paris and 1st Prize in the Dudley International Piano Competition, as well as a finalist award at the Rubinstein Competition. Ariel is a recipient of the Munster Trust Mark James Star Award and the Senior Award of the Hattori Foundation. 

8.40 pm Julian Jacobson : Sonata in E major Op 109
Vivace ma non troppo. Adagio espressivo — Prestissimo — Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo

With the E major sonata the 50-year old Beethoven opens his final great trilogy of sonatas Op.109, 110 and 111. The three sonatas share common motivic material yet are strongly differentiated in character. The first two are a relaxation after the Hammerklavier (anything would be); the E major, apart from the second movement, is predominantly lyrical. The innovation of the first movement is the hugely different tempo of the first subject, marked Vivace, ma non troppo , and the second, marked Adagio espressivo . The Vivace sections are in running semiquavers and recall the texture of many of Bach's Preludes; the Adagio sections are like passionate recitatives. The coda has a deeply felt chorale-like passage before the exquisite ending where reminiscences of the main theme float up to the ether. Beethoven blows all this away with a short, violent Prestissimo , marked to follow on without a break. Its character is powerfully unique though it is difficult to put into words exactly what the mood is: hardly humorous - perhaps a kind of exalted philosophical rage. For his finale Beethoven gives us one of his most beautiful themes, a melody of which he alone had the secret in its depth and Innigkeit . Five strict variations follow, in widely differing moods and tempi, the fifth being elaborately contrapuntal, almost a miniature fugue. The sixth and final variation builds its excitement through a series of trills - that famous feature of Beethoven's late style - before the original theme returns to close the sonata quietly, seemingly after an immense journey through the sonata is actually of quite modest dimensions

Julian Jacobson enjoys a distinguished career as pianist, composer, writer, teacher and conductor. Trained classically at the Royal College of Music London (where he now teaches, as well as at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) and Oxford University, he was also the inaugural pianist of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Great Britain. Julian has performed in more than forty countries on five continents. Frequently apppearing in China, he is Guest Professor at Xiamen University, and gives masterclasses internationally. A large and varied discography includes rarities such as the four sonatas of Carl Maria von Weber and the Violin Sonatas of Georges Enesco. He is Chairman of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe and is in the process of recording the 32 sonatas. In 2003 he made history by performing all the sonatas from memory in a single day, repeating this in 2004 and 2013; he his planning one final “marathon” for 2022. He has composed several film and TV scores including To The Lighthouse and We Think The World Of You, as well as instrumental pieces and songs.  His virtuoso transcriptions for piano duet of Gershwin's An American in Paris and Second Rhapsody, published by Schott/Bardic Edition, have received rave reviews; Julian recorded them in August for the SOMM label with his duo partner Mariko Brown.

9.05 pm Petar Dimov: Sonata in A flat major Op 110
Moderato cantabile molto espressivo — Allegro molto —Adagio ma non troppo. Allegro ma non troppo

Strangely this sonata, the second in the final trilogy, carries no dedication. Perhaps Beethoven felt it was too personal - dealing with a ‘near death’ experience in the last movement - to feel comfortable dedicating it either to a patron or a favourite pupil as was his normal practice. It is interesting to note that as the sonatas progress the principal weight shifts from the first movement to the finale. This is the case with all the major sonatas from the Waldstein : Beethoven seems to have conceived his main works more and more as journeys towards a resolution, whether tragic, triumphant or transcendental. This inevitably gives them a greater stature, equivalent to the great novels or works of dramatic literature. Thus the first two movements of Op.110, wonderful as they are, are short, simple in structure, and merely set the scene for the great and complex finale. The richly singing Moderato cantabile molto espressivo opening movement, after a sarabande-like opening - Bach is never far from late Beethoven- opens to a long cantilena. Varied material follows,in a clear sonata form with an extraordinarily calm development section consisting merely of six repetitions of the same quiet phrase, wandering through different keys. The brief, grotesque Allegro molto , doing duty as a scherzo in dupletime, has an even odder trio. The long finale alternates passages of recitative, a lament (Klagender Gesang) recalling Bach’s Es ist vollbracht from the St John Passion and a fully worked fugue. The lament returns, this time pathetic and broken, marked ‘losing force, grieving’. At the last moment ten major-key chords appear, crescendo, indicating a renewal of strength and hope. The fugue returns, in inversion and sprouting diminutions and a plethora of minute detail, like new shoots. The fugal theme finally becomes a tune, harmonised with rich pianistic figuration, there is a huge crescendo, and the sonata ends in fortissimo victory

Petar Dimov is a Bulgarian pianist and composer based in London. He was a scholar at the Royal College of Music in London from 2014 to 2020 in the piano class of Norma Fisher, obtaining a Master of Performance degree with Distinction in 2020 and a Bachelor of Music degree with Honours in 2018. His musical education began in his native Plovdiv (Bulgaria) where he studied with Svetlana Koseva until his graduation in 2014. He has won over twenty prizes from International competitions and has performed in Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and the UK. As a composer, Petar Dimov has had output for orchestra, chorus, various solo instruments and chamber ensembles. Dimov is currently supported by the Talent Unlimited foundatio

9.30 pm Sasha Grynyuk : Sonata in C minor Op 111
Maestoso, Allegro con brio ed appassionato — Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile

In the final C minor sonata - arguably the greatest sonata everwritten - we can feel the immense distance Beethoven has travelled in the mere 23 years since the Pathétique . As Schnabel points out, the weighed-down, personally sorrowing Grave introduction of the earlier sonata is replaced in Op.111 by a powerful Maestoso introduction - majestic and Olympian, with all sense of personal tragedy transcended. The main Allegro con brio ed appassionato , echoing the tempo marking for Op.13 but going beyond it with a fearless appassionato, is Beethoven at his most forceful and combative. It ends in the major with a mysteriously murmuring coda (strangely
anticipating the end of Chopin’s Revolutionary Study), the battle spent. The finale of this two-movement work is an Arietta of profound simplicity and calm. The C major song is in a simple binary form, the second part moving to A minor before returning to the tonic. The Arietta is followed by four variations and an immense coda as long as the variations. These are in increasingly short note values, giving the impression of progressive animation though the speed and pulse remain constant. Famously in the third variation Beethoven appears to have invented boogie-woogie, complete with ‘swing’ rhythm, a hundred years too early, such is the leaping ecstasy of his figuration. The fourth variation, by contrast, descends into deepest darkness for the first part, alternating with twinkling stars for the second. All of this remains in C major, and using only four main chords. The fourth variation moves seamlessly into the immense coda in which Beethoven puts his material through a wide series of modulations and brings in his famous late-period trills. The main Arietta theme returns for one further complete variation (without repeats) before a further development leads to the movement’s climax. The theme finally returns, now surrounded by a halo of trills, before ending in quiet serenity.

Winner of over ten international competitions, prizes and awards, Sasha was chosen as a 'Rising Star' for BBC Music Magazine and International Piano Magazine . His successes also include First Prizes in the Grieg International Piano Competition and the BNDES International Piano Competition, in addition to winning the Guildhall School of Music's most prestigious award – the Gold Medal - previously won by such artists as Jacqueline Du Pré and Bryn Terfel.Sasha has performed in many major venues including Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Bridgewater Hall (Manchester), Wiener Konzerthaus, Weil Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall, New York), Teatro Real (Rio de Janeiro) and Salle Cortot (Paris). He has performed with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Orchestra Sinfonica Brasiliera. His recording of music by Glenn Gould and Friedrich Gulda for Piano Classics was chosen as the record of the month for the German magazine Piano News and shortlisted for the New York Classical Radio Award. Among Sa sha's ongoing projects are performances of Shostakovich's original piano score for the 1929 silent film The New Babylon , which he premièred at LSO St. Luke's and later performed at Leif Ove Andsnes' Rosendal Festival, Norway. Born in Ukraine, Sasha studied at the Guildhall School in London. Sasha is a Keyboard Trust artist and currently benefits from the artistic guidance of its founder Noretta Conci-Leech.