Marc-Andre Hamelin - Haydn, Stockhuasen, Villa-Lobos, Liszt

Live from Wigmore Hall, London

Presented by Petroc Trelawny

Canadian virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin performs a recital of music spanning almost two centuries of virtuoso keyboard writing.

Each of the four works in this concert is a pianistic tour de force and each was written with a specific piano virtuoso in mind. Haydn wrote his E minor Sonata - widely considered his masterpiece in the genre - for Therese Jansen, an outstanding pianist who lived in London at the time of Haydn's visits there in the 1790s. Stockhausen wrote his Kavierstuck IX for the great champion of contemporary music in the 1950s and 60s Aloys Kontarsky. Villa Lobos dedicated his pioneering Rudepoema for his friend, the great Arthur Rubinstein while Liszt was himself the outstanding piano virtuoso of the 19th century. Tonight all four works are performed by one of today's greatest virtuoso pianists whose technique and musical insight marks this out as a not-to-be-missed performance.

Haydn: Piano Sonata in E minor HXVI:34
Stockhausen: Klavierstuck IX

7.55pm - Music Interval

Villa-Lobos: Rudepoema
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor S178

Marc-André Hamelin (piano).