Details
St John's Smith Square
Smith Square
City of Westminster
London
SW1P 3HA
England
Programme
Felix Mendelssohn – Piano Concerto no.2 in D minor, Op.40
Performers
Howard Shelley – piano
London Mozart Players
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
The 2019/20 London Mozart Players’ Piano Explored lunchtime series celebrates the 70th birthday of its Conductor Laureate Howard Shelley, and the season features five of Howard’s favourite piano concertos, including some lesser-known yet glorious treasures. These popular lunchtime concerts pair Howard’s illuminating deconstructions with a full performance of the work by the London Mozart Players alongside Howard at the piano. It’s the perfect way to spend a lunch hour!!
Mendelssohn’s Second Piano Concerto was composed for, and premiered at, the 1837 Birmingham Festival with the composer himself at the piano. Hugely acclaimed, the concerto is packed with Mendelssohn’s trademark dramatic themes, breathless energy and heart-melting moments of reflective calm. Above all, it showcases the virtuosic possibilities of the piano to its fullest and, in Howard Shelley’s hands, the concerto becomes a veritable tour de force. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear one of the great interpreters of early Romantic piano music.
‘Dazzling, but controlled, virtuosity was as much a mark of this excellent reading as the great emotional depth and richness of Shelley’s playing’ Daily Telegraph