Beginnings & Brilliance

Following her acclaimed Singapore debut in 2023, presented by Altenburg Arts and memorably built around a first half devoted entirely to Opus 1 works, pianist Anna Geniushene, Silver Medallist at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition, returns in solo recital with a programme shaped by striking economy and purpose: an evening framed entirely by the music of Frédéric Chopin and Johannes Brahms.

The recital opens with Chopin’s Rondo in C minor, Op. 1, a youthful work of dramatic sweep and pianistic flair. Around it unfold a sequence of character pieces that trace the breadth of his mature voice: the inwardly nuanced Mazurkas, Op. 50, the elegant yet brilliant Waltzes, Op. 34, and the headlong propulsion of the Tarantelle, Op. 43. The first half concludes with the Variations brillantes, Op. 12, where virtuosity and invention are held in perfect balance.

After the interval, the focus shifts to Brahms. The turbulent Scherzo in E-flat minor, Op. 4 reveals a composer of urgency and drive, followed by the Lullaby in Alfred Cortot’s intimate piano transcription — a moment of disarming simplicity. The recital culminates in Brahms’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major, Op. 1, a work of symphonic ambition and youthful fire that announces, unmistakably, a major musical voice.

Celebrated for her formidable technique, structural command, and probing musical intelligence, Anna Geniushene brings rare coherence to programmes of unusual conceptual clarity. This return recital does not merely revisit the idea of “firsts” — it shows how beginnings resonate across a lifetime, and how early works, in the right hands, speak with astonishing authority.