Programme

Dvorák
Slavonic Dances for piano four hands (selection)

Mozart
Piano Quartet in G minor

Turina arr Havlat World Premiere
‘The Circus’ arr for Piano Quartet
 

Interval

Tchaikovsky
Souvenir de Florence in D minor, Op. 70
 

The festival closes with a celebratory programme that draws together many of the strands explored across the three days. Dance and rhythm, theatrical character, lyricism and large-scale Romantic expression, offering a final look back before opening out into the festival’s concluding statement.

A selection of Antonín Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances for Piano four hands open the evening, brimming with rhythmic vitality and folk-inspired charm.

One of the works that helped establish the piano quartet as a serious chamber genre, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor shifts rapidly between dark intensity and playful relief, creating a distinctive balance of drama and grace; a hallmark of Mozart’s music.

A world premiere arrangement of Turina’s The Circus, commissioned by the festival and arranged by Joseph Havlát, brings theatrical colour to the evening. Originally scored for solo piano, the work unfolds as a sequence of short movements. Vivid character pieces lasting just a few minutes each depicting figures from the circus ring, from jugglers and aerialists to clowns and acrobats. Reimagined here for piano quartet, the score is brought fully to life in sound and texture; and after the huge success of Havlát’s finale arrangement at last year’s festival, it felt essential to invite him back. Knowing Joseph, the arrangement will be both funny and brilliant in equal measure.

After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence in D minor, Op. 70. Expansive, passionate and richly textured, and one of the most loved works in the chamber music repertoire brings three days of music to a fitting close.