Alexander Malofeev: Piano recital at Salle Gaveau
Paris, Salle Gaveau — Main Hall
About the Event
The great pianist Alexander Malofeev performs works by Liszt, Wagner and Rachmaninov among others in the prestigious Salle Gaveau in Paris.
Program
- Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto pour orgue en la mineur (d'après Vivaldi) BWV 593
- Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin – Prélude et Nocturne pour la main gauche op. 9
- Richard Wagner – Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg – Tannhäuser Overture
- Mieczyslaw Weinberg – Sonate n° 4 en si mineur op. 56
- Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff – Piano Sonata No. 2, B‐flat minor, Op. 36
Salle Gaveau
Salle Gaveau is a prestigious concert hall in Paris named after the French piano manufacturer Gaveau. Its season offers high-quality chamber music and piano concerts, often featuring musicians of international renown. Salle Gaveau was opened in 1907 and immediately became a popular entertainment destination. During the First World War the hall was used as a venue for morale-boosting concerts for war victims and soldiers. However, in 1963 the hall went bankrupt and was threatened with demolition to make space for a car park. Fortunately, two passionate music lovers, Chantal and Jean-Marie Fournier, rescued the Salle Gaveau and ran it for 25 years. Listed as an historical monument in the 1990s, recent restorations have returned the hall to its former glory.
Johann Sebastian Bach
The name Bach and the word musician had long been synonyms in Germany as the world saw 56 musicians from this kin. But it was Johann Sebastian Bach, a genius composer and virtuoso organ player, who shed lustre on his family name. He was born on th 31st of March 1685 in Eisenach, a small town in Thuringia. At the age of 10 he became an orphan and was brought up by his elder brother Johann Christoph, who was an organist in a neighbouring town. His brother was the one to teach music to the young Johann Sebastian. Later he moved to Luneburg where he attended a church school and mastered the techniques of playing violin, viola, piano and organ by the age of 17. Besides that, Bach was a choir singer and later after his voice broke he became a chanter’s assistant. In 1703 Bach was hired as a court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III. He earned such a good reputation there that he was later invited to Arnstadt to be an organist at the New Church, where he wrote his best organ works. In 1723 he moved to Leipzig to be a chantor at St. Thomas Church where he stayed until his death of a stroke in 1750. In the year of his death he had undergone unsuccessful eye surgery which lead him to lose his eyesight. During that strenuous time his second wife Anna Magdalena helped him to write his last musical pieces. Bach’s artistic legacy is vast. He created compositions in all genres of the time: oratorias, cantatas, masses, motets, music for organ, piano and violin.
Address
Salle Gaveau, 45, rue La Boétie, Paris, France — Google Maps