Concert Preview
Leon McCawley (piano)
Monday 15th September
7:30pm at the Penrith Methodist Church
Tickets: £20 (students £5), at the door or in advance.
Our new season begins and ends with music by composers who were born in1685. Leon McCawley’s piano recital, which opens the season on September 15th, begins with two sonatas, originally written for harpsichord, by Domenico Scarlatti, who worked at the courts of both Lisbon and Madrid, and ends with a programme which celebrates the chamber music masterpieces of the German geniuses Bach and Handel, given by the London Handel Players.
Leon McCawley was described by International Piano in 2021 as “One of today’s most impeccably musical pianists” and has been delighting audiences worldwide since winning both the First Prize in the International Piano Competition in Vienna and Second Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1993. This is his third visit to Penrith.
After the two Scarlatti sonatas, Leon’s programme continues with two works by Beethoven – the delightful Andante Favori, originally written to be the second movement of the Waldstein Sonata, and the Waldstein Sonata itself, one of his most powerful and dramatic sonatas.
Three contrasting pieces by Chopin follow – the lively Scottish rhythms of the Trois Écossaises, the gentle cradle song lyricism of the Berceuse, and the intensely-written Barcarolle, one of his last and most challenging works.
Leon’s recital ends with César Franck’s Prelude, Chorale et Fugue in B minor, his most substantial piano work and one of the most iconic piano works of the final years of the 19th century.
Programme
| Scarlatti | Sonata in F minor, K.69 |
| Scarlatti | Sonata in C major, K.159 |
| Beethoven | Andante favori, WoO 57 |
| Beethoven | Sonata in C major. op.53 (Waldstein) |
| Chopin | Trois Écossaises, op.72 |
| Chopin | Berceuse, op.57 |
| Chopin | Barcarolle. Op,60 |
| Franck | Prelude, Chorale and Fugue in B minor, FWV21 |