Your events at Classical Events
Details
Hatchlands Park
East Clandon
East Clandon
Guildford
Surrey
GU4 7RT
England
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.28 in A major, Op.101
Frédéric Chopin – Polonaise no.6 in A flat major 'Herioc', Op.53
Frédéric Chopin – Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op.44
George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue for piano solo
Performers
Fiachra Garvey – piano
Programme Note
Will be screened online - https://youtu.be/SgNEwsyNaiQ
THE INSTRUMENT
The piano played by Fiachra Garvey in this recital is the very early Steinway concert grand piano. In 1853, Steinway had opened their first factory in New York. By 1859 they patented a model of grand piano that combined a cast iron frame such as had been employed by Chickering of Chicago, with the innovation of ‘overstringing’, in which, for the first time in a grand, the bass strings cross over the tenor region. This makes it possible for the tenor strings to be closer to their optimum lengths while the bass strings have a more favourable position on the soundboard, resulting in a powerfully enhanced sonority. The new overstrung Steinway model won a first rank medal at the London Exhibition of 1862.
THE PERFORMER
Fiachra Garvey grew up on a farm in the Wicklow Mountains. He was 1st prize-winner of the 2012 Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition and former NCH Rising Star. He graduated from the Royal College of Music, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and received prizes at many international competitions including Dublin AXA, EU Prague and at Collioure, France. Concerto appearances include the Janáček Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, UCD Symphony Orchestra, RIAM Symphony Orchestra and the Hibernian Orchestra. Fiachra has worked with eminent conductors John Wilson, Theodore Kuchar, Stephen Bell, Mihhail Gerts and Duncan Ward. He has also recorded and broadcast for BBC and RTÉ television and radio and released two solo albums. Fiachra has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Fazioli Hall, National Concert Hall, Dublin, St Magnus Festival, Orkney, West Cork Festival, Brighton Festival as well as Spoleto Festival, GOOGLE, Geneva Festival, Wexford Opera, Philia Hall, Japan and Zhejiang Concert Hall, China. He is Founder and Artistic Director of the West Wicklow Festival and in 2019 was appointed Artistic Director of Classical Vauxhall and a board member of the Dublin International Piano Competition. Based between London and the farm in Ireland, Fiachra returns home to help with the yearly lambing, dipping, shearing, harvesting and all the other elegant and refined activities on the farm! Fiachra feels this makes him a more inspired and fulfilled musician. “As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.” P.G. Wodehouse
THE COLLECTION
The Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands possesses the world’s largest group of keyboards owned by or associated with the masters of music in the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, including instruments that belonged to or were played by Purcell, J C Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bizet, Chopin, Liszt, Mahler and Elgar.
We are very grateful to those who have given donations that make these events possible. To allow us to commission artists and put together more online concerts, do please consider leaving a donation.
