08/06/2019

8:00 PM

 

Joy Lisney Cello
with James Lisney Piano

Programme:

JS Bach Sonata in D for viola da gamba & keyboard, BWV1028
Chopin Cello Sonata in G minor, Op 65
Interval
JS Bach Chaconne from Partita No 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 arr. Joy Lisney for cello
Brahms Violin Sonata No 1, Op 78 transc. in D for cello & piano

Bach’s awe-inspiring Chaconne takes centre stage in a programme with Brahms and Chopin from one of the UK’s most exciting cello and piano duos.

When Johannes Brahms stumbled upon Bach’s Chaconne in 1877, he couldn’t believe his eyes: ‘On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.’

Cellist Joy Lisney’s transcription of this work is a tour-de-force of instrumental ingenuity, musicianship and virtuosity.

The programme concludes with Brahms’ Regensonate in D; an intensely nostalgic work that Clara Schumann described as ‘blissful’ and ‘melancholic’ – music that she wanted to accompany her ‘at that passage from here to eternity’.

Joy Lisney, at twenty-five, is already a veteran of the European concert platform, making regular recital visits to the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and London’s Southbank Centre. She complements her work as a composer (she was awarded the Vaughan Williams Award in 2014) with an increasing list of engagements as conductor, including (in 2019) performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (Cambridge) and the Busoni Piano Concerto (London’s St Johns, Smith Square).