Jonathan Biss's late style

At Milton Court Concert Hall tonight (27 March 2017) the pianist Jonathan Biss continues his exploration of Late Style. Biss will be contrasting Gësange der Frühe, Schumann’s last completed work before his suicide attempt and institutionalisation, and Chopin’s last large-scale work, the Polonaise-Fantasie, with seven of Kurtág’s Játékok reflecting Kurtág’s deep nostalgia for the music of the past. For the second half of the concert Biss concentrates on the music of Johannes Brahms, tracing an early-to-late trajectory, concluding with 6 Klavierstücke Op. 118 from 1893 (when the composer was 60), Brahms’s most unflinching meditation on death. Full details from the Barbican website.

For Biss's final Late Style concert on 2 May 2017 he is joined by tenor Mark Padmore in an all Schubert programme combining the the Sonata in A major with Schwanengesang, composed in the final year of Schubert’s life in 1828.