Popular speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin guides a unique look at the monumental keyboard talents of four great composer-pianists and how their performing virtuosity influenced the piano works we enjoy today.
With a legacy of printed compositions but no recordings, how can we get closer to the white-hot moments of creation and performance when these artists poured out their genius for fortunate and astonished listeners? How did the composers’ musical imaginations and their signature performance styles influence the development of how pianos would be constructed and sound? And did their contemporary audiences even comprehend what they were hearing?
Franklin offers a fascinating exploration into the creative minds—and hands—of a quartet of piano pioneers celebrated for their prowess as composers and performers. She concludes each lecture with a live performance of a work by the spotlighted composer.
British-born Franklin has been a featured speaker for organizations including the Library of Congress and NPR, exploring intersections among classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts.
March 10 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s playing was regarded as simply wondrous. Franklin examines his beginnings as a harpsichord player and how he subsequently pivoted directly to the recently developed pianofortes, creating new concerto styles that both dazzled and confused his audiences.
March 17 Ludwig van Beethoven
Mozart may have enchanted his listeners, but Beethoven overwhelmed and frequently disturbed them. While constantly harassing piano makers for stronger instruments and dealing with encroaching deafness, Beethoven created entirely new piano techniques almost by accident as he fought to express his titanic ideas on the instrument.
March 24 Frédéric Chopin
Because of both his fragile health and the exquisite patina of his style, our understanding of Chopin’s playing is sometimes clouded by romantic myth. While he only enjoyed performing for private audiences, many reports show him to have been a mesmerizing player with a piano technique and harmony so revolutionary that it left his brilliant friend Franz Liszt scrambling to keep up.
March 31 Johannes Brahms
Brahms trained intensely as a pianist and all his compositions for the instrument demand a prodigious and highly controlled technique. He was also a renowned pedagogue, and he and his muse Clara Schumann taught many students whose playing was subsequently captured by early recording, providing a tantalizing glimpse into the performing styles of the 19th century.
4 sessions
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