C. Bechstein Recital Series with Chuyun Hu

We are excited to be joined for the first time in our C. Bechstein Centre Manchester recital series by Chuyun Hu!

The evening's program will be:

Scriabin: Piano Sonata No.2 (Sonate-Fantaisie) in G-Sharp minor,

I. Andante II. Presto (1897)

The genesis of this sonata dates back to 1892, and the first movement was revised 7 times. Scriabin’s hard work resulted in a wide range of tone colours and a strong association between phrases forged by the flow of harmonies and the recurrence of motives. The second movement is also set in G-sharp minor and highly tonal. Scriabin once again ended a section with a half cadence and directly transposed the music to a new key in the next section. While the first movement reflects the traditions of harmonic practice, the second movement deploys more adventurous harmonic idioms.

Mozart: Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K333 I. Allegro II. Andante Cantabile (1783)

The tonal scheme of movement 1 is very typical of the classical sonata form, but instead of making the structures of the melodies also textbook-like, Mozart played with extensions to the 8-bar sentence or period, that is often found in other sonatas written in the age of classicism. The second movement bears the marking of ‘Cantabile’ , an Italian word that translates to English as ‘in a smooth singing style’ . The melody is indeed smooth because of the legato articulation called for by slurs over a group of notes, and the song-like quality of this middle movement is reinforced by the dominance of the melodies.

Addinsell: ‘Warsaw Concert’ from the motion picture ‘Dangerous Moonlight’

arr. Geehl (1940)

‘Warsaw Concerto’ is composed by English film composer Richard Addinsell and orchestrated by Roy Douglas for the 1941 film entitled ‘Dangerous Moonlight’. Set in the second world war, the film revolves around the Nazi invasion of Poland and the romance between the 2 protagonists, a polish male airman and an American female journalist, with another predominant subject matter in the plot being the polish pilot’s marvellous skills for composing music and playing the piano.

Debussy: Clair de Lune (1905)

The title of this piece means ‘moonlight’ in English, and is part of ‘Suite Bergamasque’. According to the performance notes written by Christopher Harding on publisher G. Schirmer’s performance edition, the term ‘Bergamasque’ refers to a dance that originates in the region of Bergamo in Italy and that does not look elegant enough. The connotation of the awkwardness of the dance can be perceived in the uneven rhythms during the first 2 sections as well as when the opening theme recurs.

Morricone: Selected music from the film ‘The Legend of 1900’:

‘The Crave’ and ‘A Mozart Reincarnated’ (1998)

‘The Legend of 1900’ is an epic fictional film that tells the life of a virtuoso pianist called 1900, who never leaves the ocean liner since the day when he was born on it. ‘The Crave’ is the music used in the competition scene of the film, where 1900 and a famed jazz pianist are contending for championship in piano performance and music composition. Having heard 1900 making up a jazzy piece of music from scratch on the grand piano, the famous jazz pianist elaborates the same piece by slightly modifying the harmonies and the rhythms, which gives us the version to be presented in this solo piano recital.

‘A Mozart Reincarnated’ is a short piece of music appearing in a scene during 1900’s early childhood, where he is playing his own work on the grand piano aboard the ocean liner and attracting a lot of attention from the ship crew, one of whom proclaimed at the scene that 1900 is a reincarnation of Mozart. This work from the film does not actually resemble the compositional style of Mozart, but it does emulate the simple beauty and the naive quality in the sound world of the major-key piano sonatas that Mozart composed.

About Chuyun:

Chuyun Hu, a classical pianist, has completed both Bachelor of Music (with Honours) and Master of Music in Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music. Chuyun Hu was awarded Shirley Catterall Award for Piano by the Royal Northern College of Music in 2015. She was commended by members of the audiences for her solo piano recitals as part of the annual Chorlton Arts Festival performed from 2021 to-date. While being enrolled at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, she obtained a first-class mark for her performance of Bruch’s 8 pieces for Piano, Viola, and Clarinet Opus 83.