Cast
Nicholas Angelich — Pianist
Program notes
At the festival Piano à Lyon, the star Nicholas Angelich performs works by Beethoven and Rachmaninov during a recital.
Known for the poetry and the sensitivity he uses to perform works of the classical and Romantic repertoires, Nicholas Angelich chose to perform here two sonatas composed by the Vienna Master, to whom he has in particular dedicated a recording in 2005.
With the Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat Major and the composer's last piano sonata, the No. 32 in C Minor, op. 111, Nicholas Angelich models the shape of the sonatas with an incredible feeling of the phrasings. In this way, he highlights all the stylistic evolution of the shape that Beethoven sought when he composed his thirty-two sonatas.
Then he performs Rachmaninov's Preludes No. 5 and 12, Op. 32 and the Études-Tableaux. We could almost forget how difficult it is to perform these "small studies", according to Nicholas Angelich's remarkable technical mastery and art of playing that seem to make the notes fly.
