Johann Sebastian Bach : ( 1685 -1750) German composer, harpsichordist, violinist and organ player.

Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Ferruccio Busoni (1866 -1924) Italian pianist, professor and orchestra conductor.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

« Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland » and « Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme « are extracts from 9 choral preludes of Johann Sebastian Bach, composed for the organ and which Busoni adapted for the piano and published in 1898.

Even though Busoni was a brilliant virtuoso pianist, comparable to Liszt, his work as a composer remained little known for a long time. He was a visionary who aspired to revolutionise the principle of tonality; but he was not brave enough to apply these precepts to his compositions, and his work stayed extremely classical and strongly influenced by Bach and Liszt.

As well as choral works, he also transcribed a certain number of pieces by Bach, such as the toccata and fugue in D minor, or even the chaconne from the partita in D minor for violin.

David Zouzout

Si Mozart, in spite of his genius, kept principally to composing music for commissions, and Beethoven is the first composer to truly bring the public to the music. What characterises Beethoven’s work is that it is irretrievably linked to the man and to his courage in carrying through his convictions as a creative artist. His background made him an heir to classicism, and he opened the way to romanticism. A number of composers would follow the paths of his thinking.

Sonata Opus 57 n 23 in F minor Appassionata

Better known as the Appassionata sonata, it was composed during the years 1803, 1804, 1805 and doubtless 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick. The first edition was published in January 1807 in Vienna. It is considered to be one of the three great sonatas of this period (with the Waldstein, opus 53, and Les Adieux, opus 81a). Until the Hammerklavier, Beethoven considered the Appassionata as being his stormiest sonata, a brilliant demonstration of emotion and of music. 1803 was the year that Beethoven became totally deaf, and the sonata without any doubt reflects the profound distress which he experienced at that time.

David Zouzout

Chopin is undeniably the composer par excellence who revolutionised the art of the piano with Franz Liszt during the first half of the 19th century.

This was the era of virtuoso pianists, equally marked by the art of improvisation, which Chopin mastered perfectly, just like his friend and contemporary Franz Liszt.

The incomparable and very spontaneous character of his music seems sometimes to derive from almost improvised composition, yet according to George Sand, he was capable of rewriting the same measure a hundred times and of spending whole weeks on a single page until he was satisfied. This is because Chopin, the "poet of the piano", as he was sometimes called, was perpetually seeking perfection. He was demanding of others, but especially of himself.

The Ballade no. 1 in G minor, Opus 23 is the first of the 4 ballades composed by Frédéric Chopin. He started its composition in Vienna in 1831, and completed it in 1835 in Paris. He dedicated it to "monsieur Baron Stockhausen", the ambassador of Hanover in France. According to Schumann, it was Chopin’s preferred ballade.

The Mazurka in 1845

The mazurka, a quick Polish three-step dance, with the accent on the second or third beat, plays an important role in Chopin’s work. The mazurkas punctuate his life as a composer, from the first ones composed in his youth, to the last, in F minor, which he wrote on his death bed.

David Zouzout

It is difficult to define Prokofiev’s art in a few words, as his style consists of multiple facets. Uncontrollable and deliberately provocative, he knew not to become trapped in the conformist mould, and even if classical tendencies are to be found in his music, he equally developed a language which was very innovative, audacious, and charged with strong emotions, to which he added the lyric and the grotesque.

Prokofiev is undeniably one of the greatest Russian musicians of the 20th century.

Sonata No3 Opus 28 (1907)
« D’après des vieux cahiers » "according to old notebooks"

This sonata was one of the major works composed by Prokofiev during the disturbances of the 1917 revolution. It comes from his student period ("according to old notebooks") and was reworked later. Written "all in one ", this tumultuous work was for a long time the sonata most played by the composer himself.

David Zouzout