"The World of Boris Pasternak" with Pianist Hannah-Elizabeth Teoh

Celebrated as the Nobel Prize awarded author of Doctor Zhivago and one of Russia's most beloved poets, Boris Pasternak's first love was music. Raised amongst the Russian elite, his mother was a renowned concert pianist, and Scriabin and Rachmaninoff were regular household visitors. As a teenager Pasternak was an accomplished pianist with aspirations to become a composer; this concert provides a rare opportunity to hear his only surviving works.

In 1945 Boris Pasternak wrote an essay on Chopin who, he contended, “is a realist in just the same sense as Lev Tolstoy.” “Their (Chopin and Bach's) music abounds in details and gives the impression of being a chronicle of their lives.” A great realist, autobiographical, is what Pasternak himself aspired to be in his novel Doctor Zhivago, on which he would begin intensive work a year later.

Pasternak's parents were both friends and followers of Leo Tolstoy, and tonight Hannah performs a Waltz attributed to Tolstoy himself.

Programme:

Boris Pasternak: Prelude No. 2 in G-sharp minor

Alexander Scriabin: Mazurka Op. 3 No. 6 in C-sharp minor

Alexander Scriabin: Prelude Op.11 No.15 in D-flat major

Boris Pasternak: Prelude No. 1 in E-flat minor

Alexander Scriabin: Etude Op. 42 No. 5 in C-sharp minor

Boris Pasternak: Piano Sonata in B minor

Frédéric Chopin: Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49

Interval

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Morceaux de salon, Op. 10:

- Waltz in A major

- Romance in F minor

Leo Tolstoy: Waltz in F major

Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp minor, Op. 23 "États d’âme"

Maurice Jarre: Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago

New Zealand born Hannah-Elizabeth Teoh studied at the Royal Academy of Music, the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and the Royal College of Music, and has won numerous awards including the Harold Samuel Prize, the Florence Murray Award, the Lesley Holland Scholarship and the Ivy Corkill Recital Award. As a concerto soloist she has performed around the world, including a premiere recording of Ross Harris’ Concertina for Piano and Orchestra with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and most recently making her Italian debut with the Master Orchestra in Brescia playing Saint-Saëns’ second piano concerto. Supporting her musical life, Hannah draws inspiration from literature and art and has a Masters in Philosophy from Birkbeck University.

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