Róza Radnóti Piano Recital

This matinee concert offers a glimpse into two very distinctive periods of French keyboard music: the 18th and 20th centuries, the Baroque and the Neoclassical era that revived its predecessor. We will hear a personal selection by the performer, Róza Radnóti, from the French Baroque’s most renowned composer, Rameau. His keyboard music is inseparable from dance and ballet—most of the keyboard works from this period are stylized court dances. These were accompanied in published music collections by various character pieces, their titles conveying the emotion or mood intended to be portrayed, such as “Tender Lamentations”, which opens the concert. For Debussy, the revival of Rameau’s ouvre was not merely a source of musical inspiration; he also sought very consciously to evoke the French heritage in contrast to Germanic, Wagnerian influences. His homage composition, written in memory of Rameau, is an impressionist work that speaks in its own language, in contrast to Poulenc’s French Suite, which is a thoroughly neoclassical work in both form and musical vocabulary. Róza Radnóti, a young pianist, approaches these works with delicate sensitivity; in her program, she sheds new light on both the precursors and the music of the subsequent eras associated with them.