GREAT PIANO MASTERWORKS

Gustavo Romero, pianist

On two successive nights of lecture-performances, pianist Gustavo Romero will discuss and perform two piano masterworks. The first evening will present Schubert’s beloved last piano sonata in B-flat major, D.960. Details of the composer’s life will be revealed, including Schubert’s struggle with ill health, Beethoven’s influence as a role model, and the importance of song in the character of Schubert’s music. 

The second evening will feature Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. In nineteenth century Russia, Mussorgsky and his contemporaries rejected the influence of German composers in seeking to create a music that would be purely Russian. The kaleidoscopic movements of Pictures at an Exhibition, each based on visual artwork, allow listeners to experience the power and directness of Mussorgsky's non-western European musical language, from his incarnation of fantastic creatures and comic flights of fancy to the monumental tone painting of ‘Great Gate of Kiev’.

 LECTURE TITLES

1. Schubert: Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D.960

2. Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition