Sonata Marathon I

Pianist Tamara Stefanovich is more than just a gifted virtuoso, she is above all a free-spirited musical thinker. She demonstrates this once again with this marathon around the classical piano genre par excellence, the sonata. No Beethoven, no ironclad repertoire and no well-trodden paths: Stefanovich instead makes an ardent plea for groundbreaking works from the early Baroque as well as from the 20th century. In three movements of an hour each, Bach is played alongside Busoni and Scarlatti alongside Skrjabin, each time with an introduction by Stefanovich herself. After successful performances at London’s Southbank Centre and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, she now brings her acclaimed programme to the Muziekgebouw, where she has been a cherished guest for over a decade.

In the first part of her Sonata Marathon, Stefanovich starts with the primordial father of the keyboard repertoire, Johann Sebastian Bach. His son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is also featured, as well as his Italian counterpart Domenico Scarlatti – known for his countless keyboard sonatas. Antonio Soler, the Spanish composing monk, studied with Scarlatti. The programme traverses a vast musical landscape. From the polished mastery of early 20th-century piano virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni, we encounter the audaciously innovative Charles Ives, whose dissonant Three-Page Sonata features subtle nods to Bach.