| Brahms, Johannes (1833-1897) | Sonate pour 2 pianos en fa mineur, Op.34b | |
| Messiaen, Olivier (1908-1992) | Visions de l'amen, for two pianos |
| Pierre-Laurent Aimard | Piano |
| Tamara Stefanovich | Piano |
Hear Stefanovich and Aimard perform deeply reflective music written for two pianos.
The ‘masterly’ Aimard and ‘staggeringly brilliant’ Stefanovich (New York Times) present Messiaen’s mystical evocation of the cosmos alongside Brahms’ richly sublime Sonata for two pianos.
Composed in 1943, soon after his release from a German prison camp, Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen is a musical outpouring of Catholic faith and spiritual ecstasy incorporating tolling bells and rapturous birdsong.
At its clandestine premiere in Nazi-occupied Paris, he performed with his student Yvonne Loriod, his muse and soon-to-be wife.
Brahms’ Sonata for two pianos is better known in its later incarnation as his Piano Quintet in F Minor. Clara Schumann advised him to remodel it, because, as she wrote: ‘it is a work so full of ideas.’ However, Brahms himself preferred it in the two-piano version. He wrote to his publisher, ‘It appeals to me in this form and has also thus appealed to anyone who has played it or heard it.’
This concert takes place as part of the ‘The Search for the Meaning of Life’ segment of Southbank Centre’s festival Belief and Beyond Belief.