Roelof Temmingh

Performers

Notes on the performers

South African pianist Roelof Temmingh enjoys a multi-faceted career comprising solo piano, chamber music, art song, orchestral piano, composition and arrangement, and working with other composers. This diverse career has taken him to sought-after stages including Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie, as well as festivals such as Verbier, Buxton, Clifton, Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, and most recently, the World Orchestra Week in New York.

He is a Young Artist of the Musicians’ Company, who also supported his Constant/Kit Lambert Fellowship at the Royal College of Music. Fellowship project highlights include Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, the Warm-blooded Hindemith series, and the Atrium Experiment, whereby 6 new compositions were commissioned.

As part of the Delphine Trio, he has recorded at Abbey Road Studios, as well as recording the trio’s debut album Adrift with the Dutch label TRPTK in 2023. Recent highlights include performing at Wigmore Hall alongside the First Prize Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards 2024, and the Ravel Concerto at Ripon Cathedral under the baton of Gary Matthewman.

Upcoming performances this season include Mozart K488 with the St Mary-le-Bow Orchestra and his debut at the much-anticipated Bechstein Hall, London, alongside duo partner tenor Matthew McKinney. His past piano teachers include Dina Parakhina, Nigel Clayton, Paul Gulda, and his mother Zorada. 

Programme

Programme notes

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28

1. Allegro
2. Andante in D minor
3. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
4. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo

Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. The name Pastoral or Pastorale became known through A. Cranz publishing of Beethoven’s work, but was first coined by a London publisher, Broderip & Wilkinson. While not as famous as its immediate predecessor, Piano Sonata No. 14, it is generally admired for its intricate technicality as well as for its beauty. Published in 1801, the work is dedicated to the Count Joseph von Sonnenfels.

Source: Wikipedia

Sergei Prokofiev

Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28

1. Allegro tempestoso – Moderato – Allegro tempestoso – Moderato – Più lento – Più animato – Allegro I – Poco più mosso

Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28 (1917) is a sonata composed for solo piano, using sketches dating from 1907. Prokofiev gave the première of this in Saint Petersburg on 15 April 1918, during a week-long festival of his music sponsored by the Conservatory.

This sonata derives from works that he composed as a teenager. In a letter to Miaskovsky on 26 June 1907, Prokofiev wrote about Piano Sonata no. 3: “It will remain…in one movement: pretty, interesting, and practical”. This sonata reveals most of the traditional sections in a sonata-form, within which Prokofiev employs his own blend of nineteenth- century Russian and twentieth-century characteristics.

The sonata is the shortest of his piano sonatas, being in a single movement in sonata form, but it is one of the most technically demanding pieces Prokofiev has ever written for the piano.

Source: Wikipedia