Mishka Rushdie Momen - International Piano Series

Tickets £7 - £35 (concessions for under 30s, students and carers. Season tickets for entire series also available.

Please note that Mishka has revised her programme. It was originally to be all Beethoven – she is now playing Ravel’s Miroirs in place of Beethoven’s Piano sonata no. 32 in C minor, op. 111. She will provide programme notes for Miroirs at her concert.

Beethoven Piano sonata no.14 in C-sharp minor, op.27 no.2 ‘Moonlight’
Beethoven Piano sonata no.28 in A major, op.101
Interval
Beethoven Piano sonata no.6 in F major, op.10 no.2
Ravel Miroirs
I. Noctuelles (Night moths)
II. Oiseaux tristes (Sad birds)
III. Une barque sur l’océan (A boat on the ocean)
IV. Alborada del gracioso (The jester’s morning song)
V. La vallée des cloches (The valley of bells)

Mishka Rushdie Momen studied with Dame Imogen Cooper in London and with Sir András Schiff at Kronberg Academy. She has appeared across the USA and Europe, her last season’s recitals including Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival and the Re-opening Festival of New York’s Frick Collection.

Tonight, her programme focuses on Beethoven’s piano sonatas, from one of the earliest to the very last. She starts in the chronological middle with the lovely ‘Moonlight’ sonata. Its catchy name was added later: Beethoven himself subtitled the sonata ‘Quasi una fantasia’ and it is a kind of fantasy, opening with a blissfully dreamy adagio, much used by film directors.

By the time Beethoven composed Piano Sonata no.32, he was totally deaf and cut off from the world, his work correspondingly freer and more intimate. This is a giant of a piece. In two movements only, it whirls into chaos, touches depths of profundity, has moments of tranquillity and leaves the listener in awe.