Poets at The Piano

Tonight's program is filled with mystery, longing and virtuosity.  Bach's Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor opens with a tense and melancholic prelude that gives away to a masterful fugue in five voices.  Mozart's Fantasied, left unfinished at the time of the composer's death, is a temperamental and moody work in seven distinct sections.  From the opening notes of the immediately recognizable Ballade No 1, one understands why Chopin called it his "dearest work".  This daring work takes the Sturm and Drang movement to epic, dreamlike heights.  Gershwin's delightful "It Ain't Necessarily So" gives way to Schumann's rich and colorful Piano Quartet.