Pre-concert talk 12:00 (20mins)
Joseph Long is one of Scotland’s finest concert pianists. He has broadcast and recorded widely, and his performances and recordings of lesser-known works alongside more mainstream repertoire have succeeded in bringing the former to a wider audience than is often the case.
With recitals, lecture-recitals and masterclasses in venues as diverse as the Edinburgh Society of Musicians, St.-Martin's-in-the-Fields in London, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, the Calcutta School of Music and the University of Almeria in Spain, Joseph has experience of playing to many different types of audience.
Joseph also maintains a keen interest in musical education and in the imparting of knowledge to others and is a teacher of advanced piano studies at the North East of Scotland Music School and the University of Aberdeen.
Joseph Long continues his challenge to play all 18 of Mozart’s piano sonatas in a series of concerts for Cowdray Hall audiences. Today’s performance includes Mozart’s sonata K.280 in F and K.310 in A minor. Find out more in Joseph’s pre-concert talk.
Sonata K.280 in F
Allegro assai
Adagio
Presto
K.280: This sonata was composed in 1775 and was part of a set of six sonatas that Mozart wrote while visiting Munich. The outer movements are replete with qualities that characterise much of the rest of the set - wit, good humour and elaborate pianism (Mozart himself described the six sonatas as "difficult").
Sonata K.310 in A minor
Allegro maestoso
Andante cantabile
Presto
K.310: Of Mozart's eighteen piano sonatas, only two are in minor keys - the sonata K.457 in C minor (the first sonata to be featured in this series of concerts) and the present work, K.310 in A minor. Both are emotionally charged works that form part of the Sturn und Drang movement that swept through the arts during the 1770s.
