Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano
Performers
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano
Program
HAYDN Piano Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 50
FANNY MENDELSSOHN Easter Sonata
R. SCHUMANN Kinderszenen
CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58
Encore:
CHOPIN Prelude in D Minor, Op. 28, No. 24
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.Salon Encores
Join us for a free drink at a post-concert reception in Weill Recital Hall’s Jacobs Room.
Learn More
At a Glance
HAYDN Piano Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 50
Although most concertgoers more readily associate Haydn with symphonies and string quartets than with keyboard music, he composed dozens of masterful sonatas and other works for both harpsichord and piano throughout his career. The three-movement Sonata in C Major—an exuberant showpiece written in the mid-1790s—highlights the bold sonorities of the Broadwood pianos that Haydn heard in London.
FANNY MENDELSSOHN Easter Sonata
The Easter Sonata is the second of three piano sonatas by Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s highly accomplished older sister. (Only belatedly did she establish an independent claim to fame under her married name, Fanny Hensel.) Auspiciously, she finished the first movement on Easter Sunday 1828 and premiered the entire work for a private audience a year later.
R. SCHUMANN Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15
Schumann composed the deceptively uncomplicated miniatures that make up Kinderszenen in part as a love letter to his future wife, Clara Wieck. Although he called them “light as a bubble,” Wieck saw clearly that he had invested these “scenes of touching simplicity” with the emotional turmoil of his inner life.
CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58
Chopin demonstrated uncompromising independence as both a composer and pianist. Liszt characterized him as “one of those original beings” who are “adrift from all bondage.” It was arguably the unparalleled range and subtlety of Chopin’s pianism that enabled him to cast off the shackles of musical convention so successfully in works such as the great Sonata in B Minor.