Edward Harris-Brown

Performers

Notes on the performers

Edward Harris-Brown is an 18-year old pianist and composer from Shrewsbury, and is a first year undergraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music where he studies with Head of Piano Joanna MacGregor and holds a full scholarship. Previously he studied at Chetham’s School of Music for eight years, under Murray McLachlan, where he won all the internal piano and composition prizes. Additional success includes reaching the televised rounds of BBC Young Musician and first prizes in the EPTA UK and Abingdon concerto competitions. He has also appeared as soloist, duo partner, chamber musician and jazz pianist in recitals across the country and has had his compositions performed at venues in Shrewsbury, Manchester and London. He was also Highly Commended in BBC Young Composer 2023.

Programme notes

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945)

Piano Sonata Sz.80

1. Allegro moderato
2. Sostenuto e pesante
3. Allegro molto

The Piano Sonata, BB 88, Sz. 80, is a piano sonata by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, composed in June 1926.It is tonal but highly dissonant (and has no key signature), using the piano in a percussive fashion with erratic time signatures. Underneath clusters of repeated notes, the melody is folklike. Each movement has a classical structure overall, in character with Bartók’s frequent use of classical forms as vehicles for his most advanced thinking. 

Source: Wikipedia

Chopin (1810 – 1849)

Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.35

1. Grave – Doppio movimento
2. Scherzo
3. Marche funèbre: Lento
4. Finale: Presto

The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B♭ minor, Op. 35, is a piano sonata in four movements by Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Chopin completed the work while living in George Sand’s manor in Nohant, some 250 km (160 mi) south of Paris, a year before it was published in 1840. 

Source: Wikipedia

Ravel ( 1875 – 1937)

La Valse

1. Movements

La valse, poème chorégraphique pour orchestre (a choreographic poem for orchestra), is a work written by Maurice Ravel between February 1919 and 1920; it was first performed on 12 December 1920 in Paris. 

Ravel described La valse with the following preface to the score:

“Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.”

Apart from the two-piano arrangement, which was first publicly performed by Ravel and Alfredo Casella, Ravel also transcribed this work for one piano. The solo piano transcription is infrequently performed due to its difficulty.

Source: Wikipedia